In 'Us', a group of Oxford students struggle to come to terms with a friend's death.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
'Compulsive ... a genuine page-turner, anchored in vivid characterisation but driven forward with the skill of the best thriller-writers' Arena
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Richard Mason was born in South Africa and lives in Glasgow. His first novel, The Drowning People, won Italy's Grinzane Cavour Prize for Best First Novel (2001) and has been translated into 16 languages.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Confused,
By
This review is from: Us (Paperback)
Although I thoroughly enjoyed Richard Mason's first effort, "The Drowning People", I found this long-awaited second novel confusing. I guess the idea of looking at the same situation from three people's viewpoints -- where the narrative of each of them is in the first person -- could be found interesting but it didn't strike me that way.
In "Us", I found the writing style "excessively literary", almost like showing off. This is not the Richard Mason I've met and conversed with and I do hope that he returns in the future with a book that better displays his skill at writing nuances and small details that add such richness to his work.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Young adult thriller that doesn't do justice to its premise,
By
This review is from: Us (Paperback)
Three outsiders - Julian, Jake and Adrienne - come together in their first year at Oxford and, under the influence of Julian's charismatic sister, Maggie, take revenge on Jake's boarding school tormentor, the revoltingly perfect Benedict Chieveley...
The most generous reading of "Us" is that it attempts to dramatize an early quote from Hobbes' "Leviathan" regarding the three essential human types - tyrant, victim, bystander. When victims and bystanders play the tyrant, things can go horribly wrong. The life of man - even in sophisticated, educated, twentieth-century England - can still be "nasty, brutish and short" or, worse, long and filled with painful memories. That philosophical edge might have made "Us" a kind of English companion piece to Donna Tartt's "The Secret History", and there are moments when it leans in that direction, but not quite enough. Unfortunately, the treatment it gets here is rather superficial. A novel dealing with childhood bullying and its lingering, life-altering impact is probably best executed as a close study of a single character. As the title suggests, however, Mason is probably interested in something broader: the psychology of the pack. He explores the consciousness of multiple characters by alternating between first-person accounts headed with each character's name, much like Julian Barnes, Graham Swift and so many others have done previously. This can work if the characters themselves are interesting people, articulate and self-aware, or even interestingly deluded. But Mason's characters are pre-fabricated types and their short, punchy chapters tend to stall at surface detail. They read like they were dashed off as writing exercises, when what this kind of story really requires is acute, reflective analysis. Indeed, the best parts are those in which Mason articulates, rather than dramatizes, the horrific and laughable aspects of the English and American class systems and the psychological torment afforded by relationships with family and apparent friends. It might have worked better had he chosen one character (Julian or Jake) and gone deep, rather than tried to cover three characters in multiple time frames, especially in a novel this short (it's probably little more than 85,000 words). The characters simply never became real for me, in the sense that I never accepted them as convincing human beings - and that's problematic in a novel that probes psychological terrain and is ultimately asking its readers to feel, more than anything, empathy. As a result, I felt there was so much more that could've been done with such a delicious premise. Mason's talent might actually be for short fiction rather than novels, because buried here are what could have been a few very good short stories: Julian's discovery of his father's affair, and his exploitation of it; the tale of the missing betting ticket; and Jake's rise to fame in the art world. All show that Mason has a talent for imagining wonderful situations, and making the most of them as short vignettes.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must Read Book,
By
This review is from: Us (Paperback)
This was a great book, once I picked it I could not put it down. This is Richard Mason's second book and all I can say is that he just keeps getting better. While the story is a little simple, its the writing and makes this book and "The Drowning People" great. He makes you care and want to find out what happens to these characters.
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