The Thin Wall [Paperback]

Cheryl Anne Gardner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 2009

Young, innocent college freshman Laleana O'Reilly, disenchanted with societal norms, decides that she needs a new philosophy. One dreary late night in the college library, she discovers the Marquis deSade and Julian, and through an unbridled act of passion, her innocence and naiveté were no more. The Thin Wall is a story of codependence, love, obsession, and the unadulterated surrender of one's body, mind, and soul. It's a story of trust and friendship. Laleana's struggle is one of faith, she teaches us that to accept and submit to one's desire is to receive bountiful pleasure, but to deny the need to be loved and accepted is to endure suffering beyond measure. Will Laleana have the strength to release herself from her bonds and find the love she seeks?

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Interview with Tyler Tichelarr, Readerviews.com, January 14, 2008

Tyler: Cheryl, why did you write this book?

Cheryl: This book is a case study in human self-awareness. I believe everyone has the capacity for that. It's also a book about acceptance, love, and true unconditional friendship. Humans will always seek the comfort of others--others likeminded. We don't want to feel alone; we simply can't survive alone. And in many cases, when our families have betrayed us, our friendships are the ones we cling to for dear life.

Tyler: Without giving away the ending, what is the message you want to present in "The Thin Wall"? What benefit or knowledge will the reader have gained after reading the book?

Cheryl: Everyone should be true to themselves. And true friendship lies with those who accept you, no matter what your career, your marital status, your finances, your religious beliefs, or your sexual preferences (providing it's between consenting adults). Society's view of normal is nothing more than opinion and conjecture...your own opinion is the only one that matters, how you feel about yourself. Like Tom says: "If it feels true then do it. Take the risk." He was speaking of his career in that statement, but it means so much more in the context of the story. But in the end, Thin Wall is a tried and true hopelessly romantic love story...Laleana does find the love she has always believed in, the love that is right for her. I have been accused of being a hopeless romantic.

Tyler: Do you feel concern about the reception of the book because of the subject matter, and why did you decide to publish the book despite what reaction you might receive because of the subject matter?

Cheryl: I don't worry about such things. Authors should endeavor to write truth, and they should write it the way they feel it. Some readers will see the greater depth of the work, and some will find it a fascinating dark love story with lots of sex. Either way, each reader will get what they want out of the story. As long as they get something, an author can't complain. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Cheryl Anne Gardner is a writer of dark, often disturbing, literary Novellas with romantic/Erotic undertones. She is an avid reader and Indie reviewer with: Podpeople.Blogspot And a guest reviewer with BreeniBooks.Blogspot. She is an advocate for independent film, music, and books, and when at all possible, prefers to read and review out of the mainstream Indie published works, foreign translations, and a bit of philosophy. She lives with her husband and ferrets on the East Coast, USA.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: Twisted Knickers Publications (March 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0982214510
• ISBN-13: 978-0982214510
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,969,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cheryl Anne Gardner is a writer of dark, often disturbing art-house literary novellas and abstract flash fiction. She is an advocate for independent film, music, and books, and when at all possible prefers to read and review out-of-the-mainstream indie published works, foreign translations, and a bit of philosophy. Her love of literature began at an early age with Bram Stoker's Dracula. Captivated by the Gothic and Dark Romantic stylings of Poe, Lovecraft, Kafka, and de Sade, her passion for the macabre manifests itself throughout her own work to this day. She lives with her husband and ferrets on the east coast USA, is an enthusiastic gardener, and her micro-flash can be found at Apocrypha and Abstractions Literary Journal where she is a contributing editor. Her flash fiction has been published at Dustbin, Dark Chaos, Carnage Conservatory, Pure Slush, Negative Suck, Danse Macabre, and at The Molotov Cocktail among others. When she isn't writing, she likes to chase marbles on a glass floor, eat lint, play with sharp objects, and make taxidermy dioramas with dead flies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes a thin wall isn't such a bad thing..., June 3, 2009

By 

Shannon L. Yarbrough "Shannon L. Yarbrough" (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Thin Wall (Paperback)

Ever lived in an apartment where the walls were a bit too thin and you often overheard music from the next apartment? Did you ever wonder who was listening to that music and why? What did the music do for them? How did it make them feel? What were they doing while listening to it? Did you ever overhear too much of a conversation? Or maybe you just heard bits and pieces and you were left to fill in the missing pieces?

Did you ever overhear an argument that sounded detrimental to someone, and yet your curious mind just listened instead of turning up the television? You didn't do anything to stop it. Did you ever wonder if someone was on the other side listening to you? While the majority of my questions suggest you could somehow judge Cheryl Anne Gardner's book, The Thin Wall, by its title, if you did you'd be wrong.

At 124 pages, Gardner embraces the novella format, a particular type of book I have to admit I haven't read in a while. And in her book, the reader is treated to those brief scenarios, those un-muffled pieces of conversation you could hear through the wall once you turned off your television. I was constantly eager to turn the page to find out what would happen next, only to find the characters in a new setting and having new conversations on a different day without any of the "in between" movements that often push a longer novel along. Gardner has whittled the story down to its bare essence and given you, quite purely, only what you need to know.

The story revolves around five friends and the relationships that mingle between them, and Gardner does not just scratch the surface of their friendships. She tunnels through the very veins of each of these characters, carefully dissecting the differences that lie between their hearts and their souls. Laleana O-Reilly, a librarian slightly obsessed with the Marquis de Sade, finds herself torn between two very different men. To make things worse, the two men are close friends within the group of five. Julian, the dominant one of the bunch, visits Laleana's bed with maddening "monsteresque" fury. The two explore the brutal realms that lie between pleasure and pain. But their blood-laced habits soon run Laleana spiritually dry, and she finds herself bored with Julian's lust as her heart desires something much much more.

The "something more" is a shy introvert named Ioan. He's quiet. He's an artist. And he spends his nights burning his paintings of nude women because he just "can't get the blood right." Might I add that several of these paintings are portraits Laleana herself has posed for. Between posing for Ioan, having afternoon tea with her girlfriend Cecile, and hanging out in the projection booth of a porn theater with an addict named Tom, Laleana ignores their warnings about Julian as they spy the healing cuts on her back. But an awkward and intense moment shared with Ioan one night will soon change everything.

Brimming with passion and sexual tension, their story lines often reveal more to the reader than what is written right on the page in front of you. Laleana's love for literature and her own writing habits give the book a certain depth outside of the submission and dominance her and her friends explore. The book even ends with a short story written by Laleana entitled "The Muse and the Alchemist."

By blatantly presenting her characters with such honesty, Gardner commands her readers to question their own inner identity, as presented in these lines from the last chapter:

"A person is defined by what they do and what they don't do. It really is that simple.

Our lives belong to us and no one else.

Were we better people for the self-imposed trials and tribulations we had endured? Had we gained anything appreciable from the choices we had made, the blood we had shed, the secrets we had chosen to reveal, or the shadows we had confronted in blind faith? We would all like to think so.

True salvation lies in this knowledge. It lies in the cruelly eroded crevices of a cold thin wall."

Cheryl Anne Gardner tears those walls down! She has given us a brilliant character study focusing on where the lines between sex and friendship blur. It's a place you don't want to go to, a conversation you don't want to overhear, but curiosity will have its way with you. And when it does, The Thin Wall is the book you should treat yourself to.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Cutting Edge, June 8, 2009

By 

Floyd M. Orr "Nonfiction in a Fictional Style" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Thin Wall (Paperback)

Cheryl Anne Gardner's fourth novella is a concise study of the psychodrama that is inevitably present in a sadomasochistic relationship. The author presents her characters through their own thoughts and conversations, explaining the complex psychology of the group as the story unfolds.

The key issue surrounds a lady who has been involved in a long term relationship with a very controlling man who is also seemingly quite unpredictable and abusive. The S/M cuts much deeper than the little whips designed not to leave marks, as employed in Story of O. Laleana shows the scars from repeatedly cutting herself with a knife, as well as those from the cleverly sadistic Julian. The sexual encounters and their violent contexts are carefully, thoughtfully presented in a brief, delicate manner, though, so The Thin Wall avoids entering any prurient or pornographic area.

The Thin Wall is the story of five old college friends, two women and three men, who are still socializing together at the ripe ages of their late thirties. None of the five are gay, but they are certainly independent singles who have little interest in marriage or children. They meet in the local pub on weekends and visit each other's apartments and other locations for long-term, yet fleeting, sexual relationships. The plot is set in London and the author is quite obsessed with all things English, including odd spellings and phrases here and there that might easily distract the average American reader. No more plotline or character development will be revealed in this review, but the storyline is as much like the movie The Big Chill or an episode of Friends or Seinfeld as it is the book or movie version of Story of O. The five characters interact with each other in personal, revealing ways in a show-don't-tell, pleasing manner, and there are enough surprises to keep the reader interested until the end.

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and different, June 3, 2011

By 

Brandy N. Hunt "A'tuinsails" (GA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Thin Wall (Kindle Edition)

I really enjoyed this book. Once again it is something unique and different. But this time the characters are people I swear I knew in graduate school.

The characters in this particular novel are men and women trying to live their lives in spite of the expectations of family and society. It is a theme that I can understand and empathize with. Of course, the story is still dark and a bit bloody, so read only if you think you can handle it.