Daniel's alcoholic father Cal walked out on his family to dry out in the parched, ravaged landscape of Phoenix, Arizona. Now, 13 years later, Daniel travels to the lunar wastelands of the American desert to unravel the mystery of his father's strange life on the margins of human existence.
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Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
A second novel (though first to be published in the US) from expatriot American writer Amidon combines a story of alcoholism and the family with a suspenser involving business chicanery and Native Americans. Daniel North is a young American actor living in London, preparing to see his father for the first time in 13 years. But Cal dies of a heart attack on the flight to London, leaving Daniel curious about the mysterious business deal his father wanted to tell him about. He accompanies the body back to Phoenix, where he meets two strangers--his stepmother Lindy and his half-brother James. Cal, an alcoholic, had left Daniel and his mother (since dead) out of shame, and (so Daniel now learns) moved in with Lindy, another alcoholic; only when they were about to lose little James to a foster-home did both parents come to their senses, climb on the wagon, and head West, where Cal found work selling water rights. Daniel and Lindy reach a wary accommodation; he will stay in Phoenix for a time, though their desert subdivision is uninviting and neither Lindy nor Cal's boss, Richard Sweetman, can solve the mystery of Cal's latest deal. As Lindy, scared at suddenly being a single parent, goes on a terrifying, life- threatening bender, Daniel's sleuthing leads him to a nearby Indian reservation, where he learns that Cal had planned to divert water illegally from a government irrigation project in return for a large kickback from the Indians; left unexplained is why Cal would have flown off in the midst of such tricky negotiations. Soon after Daniel's discovery, the plot collapses in melodramatic confusion. The best writing here is about alcoholism; once Amidon's plotting becomes as effective as his taut style, he may write a novel of real power. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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More About the Author
Stephen Amidon was born in Chicago. He is the author of Subdivision, a book of short stories, and six novels, including The New City and Human Capital, which Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post chose as one of the five best novels of 2004. His books have been published in sixteen countries, and he is a regular contributor of essays and criticism to newspapers and magazines in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. He lived and worked in London for twelve years before returning to the United States in 1999. The Sublime Engine: A Biography of the Human Heart, which he co-authored with his brother Tom, was released in 2011 and selected by the Wall Street Journal as one of the five best health and medicine titles of the year. Amidon's next book, Something Like The Gods, will be released on June 5th, 2012. For more information, visit stephenamidon.com.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed but not without merit,
By A Customer
This review is from: Thirst (Hardcover)
The so called plot here revolves around shady business deals in the desert perpetrated by an ex-alcoholic who dies suddenly leaving his estranged out-of-work actor son to fly in from England and unravel the mystery from only a curious list of names found in a briefcase. The novel then proceeds to fail its own hackneyed plot device, botching its attempt at conventional detective intrigue. The sense about half way through that the author has no clue where he's going is confirmed by the ludicrous events of the clumsily appended finale. Fortunately for Amidon, the book redeems itself with a precisely evoked desert atmosphere, a sensitive portrayal of human relationships fractured by alcohol abuse and some memorably surreal set pieces, including one involving a drunken widow and a killer cactus! Worth a look for its style if you can bear the absence of direction.
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