Sparrow Nights [Hardcover]

David Gilmour (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 16, 2002

After she leaves you, how bad can it get? An exhilarating novel of erotic and psychotic extremes from one of Canada's best novelists. Everyone would agree that Darius Halloway is the most civilized of men--a professor of French literature, a connoisseur of ideas and women and wine, a perfect guest at life's dinner party. Darius himself would agree--that is, he would until Emma, waifish and insatiable Emma, leaves her empty clothes hangers rattling in his closet and walks out the door.For a little while, it's not so bad. He's in shock. He thinks she must come back. And other women find his melancholy quite compelling. But then the sparrows of insomnia start picking at the inside of his skull. And life's little aggravating moments seem to require him to seek direct retaliation. And all his smoothness and cleverness is soon directed toward wreaking the most elaborate revenge...and getting away with it. Until the ultimate revenge arises, and there he is, in the most damning of situations, with his nerves on fire and his heart in his throat...and finally not thinking of Emma. "If someone put a gun to my head and forced me to commit that most literary of misdemeanors--naming a voice of my generation--I'd first ask, do you mean...that part of my generation that kept a light shining in the chamber of their secretly flawed and sometimes sinful dreams? And if the answer was yes, I just know I'd blurt out David Gilmour." Bob Shacochis, National Book Award Winner "Gilmour is an honest craftsperson...using the almost old-fashioned materials of interesting characters, carefully wrought scenes, sharp dialogue, and genuine observations into human character." Toronto Star

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The "whack, whack, whack" of the flapping flag on his neighbor's property keeps middle-aged college academic Darius Halloway awake at night. So he sneaks out in darkness and cuts the flag's rope. When another neighbor's dogs disturb his concentration, Darius poisons them, and when, at a resort hotel, he's bothered by the noise of a neighbor's air conditioner, he climbs a ladder and stuffs a glue-soaked sock into the machine's works. Self-absorbed, prone to paranoia and obsession, enamored of young women and fine wine, Darius is the brilliantly constructed protagonist and coolly lucid narrator of this new, excellent novel from Canadian writer Gilmour (Lost Between Houses). Darius's extreme responses to life condense into his erotic longing for Emma Carpenter, a young, equally impulsive graduate student whom he carries on with for a few years before she dumps him. The ditching spins Darius into a wallow of self-pity, which he alleviates momentarily via a visit to a massage parlor, where he meets a black woman named Passion, whom he invites to his house. When Passion takes him up on the offer, she robs him; when he later confronts her, he's beaten by her pimp. The next day, the pimp comes calling and Darius shoots him dead, then hacks up the body and burns it in his furnace all this perfectly justifiable to this unbearably pretentious professor of French lit, who, moments after disposing of the body, savors hearing "the opening, almost inquisitive notes of the Concierto de Aranjuez." Like Jerzy Kosinski, Gilmour is able to carry readers deep into the mind of a self-rationalizing madman; it's an exhilarating journey, expertly observed and quite disturbing.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is the story of one man's descent into obsession. Darius Halloway, a respected professor of French literature, falls in love with an eccentric young woman named Emma Carpenter. Together they explore the limits of passion and desire, but when she breaks off the affair, his life spins out of control. He finds himself conceiving and carrying out a series of revenge fantasies against neighbors and casual acquaintances, culminating in an encounter with a masseuse and her criminal-minded boyfriend that nearly ends in his death. In the macabre conclusion, the book offers a glimpse of redemption for its hero. Gilmour is a Toronto-based writer whose previous novel, Lost Between Houses, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award. His latest is sure to solidify his reputation as an edgy, intelligent author. This work offers a great deal of mordant wit, and the writing is consistently first-rate, layering memory, inner monolog, and fast-paced action. Recommended for all collections. Philip Santo, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; First edition. edition (April 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582432031
• ISBN-13: 978-1582432038
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,589,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sparrow novel, May 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Sparrow Nights (Paperback)

I am impressed by Gilmour's work here. He does an excellent job at expressing the emotions one would explain if our heart or the person that we so entwine with our selves leaves us. This novel shows how one person deals with this universally experienced scenario. The shortcoming for me was that there is no completeness to this novel. The novel starts with showing how classy our professor is and it shows his decline into something definitely less than the persona he so cherished about himself. The ending how ever does not really pursue or finish pursue any of the themes raised in the earlier parts of the novel. The professor is just left hanging in the middle of his dilemma.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars picaresque..........., August 11, 2002

By 

Toby J. Galinkin (chapel hill, n.c. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sparrow Nights (Hardcover)

this book is full of self-created misadventures by a love-sick college professor...i am not sure whether or not it is intentionally humorous but i found it to be hilarious in its bleak blackness...one bad thing after another for this poor self-involved creature...well worth reading....slim and captivating.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Witty short novel, July 22, 2002

By 

A T Colquhoun (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sparrow Nights (Hardcover)

Very elegant. Very droll. Very Nabokovian.