Customer Reviews

Wait Until Twilight: A Novel

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**Review Part One: Coming-of-age and Much, Much More**

Sang Pak's "Wait Until Twilight" is a coming-of-age story, and it is much more. It is also, in part, a "surrealist" narrative of coming-to-self-understanding. That is, the story reflects a complex set of psychological processes, of which the main character is largely unconscious at the beginning of the novel, but which are outwardly enacted by and gradually understood by the main character. Sang Pak's development and integration of these two genres -- a moving coming-of-age story and an intricate, surrealist process of self-understanding -- is quite ingenious and is executed with stunning brilliance.

Another excellent example of the latter genre is Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club." "Wait Until Twilight," however, offers something quite different than a multiple-personality plot-twist as a strategy for narrating and explaining the development of its characters and plot. In a key sequence (pp. 185-189), we find Samuel Polk, the novel's 16-year-old main character, sitting in on a college psychology class for his older brother, and we learn about a female psychologist and novelist who wrote "dark fairy tales" to illustrate her views on archetypal processes of psychological development. "Wait Until Twilight" is precisely this sort "dark fairy tale," characterized by the unfolding of psychological conflicts and resolutions.

"Wait Until Twilight" achieves a fine balance here: it explains the archetypal psychology at work in Samuel just enough to enable the reader put the psychological puzzle pieces of Samuel's story together; yet it refrains from psychological explanation enough to leave the fitting-together of the puzzle pieces open to interpretation. To be clear, Pak does not use Samuel's coming-of-age story to expound some psychological theory that Pak has developed: rather, these bits of pieces psychology serve as a self-reflexive mode of character and plot exposition that Pak folds neatly into the novel itself. For more spoiler-free general comments, see "Review Part Two" below.

**Summary Part One: Basic Plot Details**
(No major spoilers)

At the very beginning of the story, we learn in passing that Samuel Polk's mother died a year before the novel begins. 16-year-old Samuel says he's over it. Samuel and his friend are on their way to see three grossly disfigured babies (siblings) that Samuel might use for a video assignment. Samuel finds the babies viscerally repugnant, and drops the idea of using them for his video. Yet, he develops a "sick curiosity" about the babies, voyeuristically wanting to see them again -- just to look at them. And he's reminded of them at every turn: his thoughts obsessively find a way back to think about the babies.

However, Samuel's "sick curiosity" is complex and ambivalent, and it psychologically mirrors the difference between the babies' mother and their twenty-something, "normal" brother, Daryl. On the one hand, the mother is disgusted by Samuel's reaction to seeing the children, and Samuel likewise finds his repugnance repugnant. As well, he wants to make sure that the babies are "okay," that they are properly cared for despite the impoverished state in which the family lives, but the mother banishes Samuel from the house. On the other hand, Samuel -- like Daryl -- continues to find the babies repugnant in a powerful way: "monster-babies" that shouldn't be alive. Samuel's ambivalent and impulsive feelings, and his investigative attempts get back into the house, propel him headlong into dark sympathies with as well as violent conflicts with Daryl.

But why are Samuel's feelings about the babies so powerful, how does he resolve those conflicting feelings, and how does he resolve his intensely conflictual relationship with Daryl? And what does all this have to do with Samuel's recurring thoughts about his mother, and his recurring statements that he's "over it"?

**Summary Part Two: The Interwoven Archetypal "Fairy Tale"**
WARNING: BEGIN SPOILERS

After learning about "sexuality as initiation," "character repugnance," "character acceptance," etc. in his brother's psychology class, Samuel's surrealist coming-to-self-understanding begins. His coming-of-age experience of sex with Naomi, a college girl, is his developmental "initiation." Through it, he feels like he's become "the primal man," which begins to free him from something he's "repressing" deep down. Then he sees, "Vampire Incarnation," an anime movie in which civilized humans must become vampire-like to kill the vampires that have taken over their world. Daryl is the inhumane, murderous vampire in Samuel's world. If Samuel is to confront Daryl, Samuel must "un-repress" his own "primal" side and he must unleash his own inhumane and violent side -- unleash his internal vampire. For Samuel, this process begins with a conflict with Naomi's boyfriend, which serves a as a prelude and precursor to Samuel's battle to the death with Daryl.

With Samuel's external vampire dead and reduced to ashes, Samuel's own internal vampire begins to die as well -- for it was Daryl who represented and drew out Samuel's violent and inhumane side. By becoming violent and inhumane in the murder of Daryl, for which Daryl's mother is equally responsible, this side of Samuel is not cultivated but purged. And becoming "primal" perhaps has two meanings here: relating not only to carnal sex and violence but also to Samuel's opportunity to "start over" in certain respects. For it is at this point that Samuel returns to his relationship to the babies, to his mother's death, and to Melody and begins to grow in new directions.

First, then, becoming unlike Daryl, Samuel becomes more humane and more human, turning from "repugnance" at the "monster" babies to "accepting" them as they are -- as "human" as he is.

Second, at the center of Samuel's development is the coming-of-age realization and confession -- the release of what's repressed, the release of the source of Samuel's inhumane side. Samuel confesses to Melody that, in a youthful and disrespectful but not malicious way, he ignored and abandoned his mother as she was dying of cancer. As her health declined, Samuel came to see her as no longer human, as a "vegetable." So guilt-riddled was his experience of his actions that he felt he had killed his mother and saw himself as a despicable "monster." It was, in a sense, his own "monstrosity" that he saw in the babies, and the repugnance he experienced toward them reflected the repugnance he felt about his own inhumane "monstrosity." Samuel says to Melody: "I was the monster... that I wanted to destroy." In connection with his changed perception of the babies, having come to see them as human, Samuel comes to see himself as human again -- no longer a "monster." He kept all these feelings bottled-up and repressed, deep down, but they are now conscious and out in the open as he confesses to Melody. By confessing to Melody his perceptions of himself as inhuman(e) and monstrous, Samuel is again engaged in a process of becoming human -- purging these self-perceptions from himself. In this way, Samuel begins to come to terms with his experiences of the maternal loss that he's been saying he's "over" since Page #1 of the novel, and Melody is for Samuel, at that moment, a maternal figure through which he can experience a reconciliation.

Finally, Samuel's sense of his inhumanity and monstrosity in relation to his mother had prevented him from feeling affection for Melody and becoming close to her: they had always remained strangely distant from one another, and Samuel had done his part to keep it that way. Now, however, Samuel confesses his sense of his inhumanity to Melody, opening up and becoming closer to her. Melody, in turn, embraces him, and on the final page of the novel Samuel eschews his usual high school lunchroom clique to sit with Melody, giving him "a good feeling that [he] can't understand at all." Thus, Samuel has only partially come to terms with the way Melody is a maternal figure for him and with the affection that he feels for her. With respect to Samuel's relationships to both his mother and to Melody, "Wait Until Twilight" ends, appropriately, at the beginning or middle of complex processes of partial self-understanding. Despite certain appearances, the resolution here is by no means complete.
END SPOILERS

**Review Part Two**
(No major spoilers)

In addition to the merits addressed in the first part of my review, "Wait Until Twilight" skillfully and successfully employs a narrative strategy of putting the reader in Samuel's position, such that we learn about Samuel's psychological development only as he becomes conscious of it himself. As a result, the reader must reconsider the beginning and middle of the story from the perspective of the greater self-understanding that Samuel achieves at the end of the novel.

As well, there is a certain open-endedness that Pak gives to Samuel's coming-of-age experience. For example, at the conclusion of the novel, we see that Samuel does not entirely understand his feelings for Melody, his maternal high school love interest: he does not entirely understand either the way she is a maternal figure for him or the nature of his affection for Melody. In this sense, Pak's novel, again, is as much about coming-of-age as it is about coming-to-self-understanding, which Pak rightly leaves as an open-ended process.

To be sure, coming-to-self-understanding is, in Pak's novel, set in the context of teen-age years and contains the sorts of events that define the coming-of-age genre. On the other hand, coming-to-self-understanding has no age limits, nor do the psychological processes with which the novel deals. In this way, Pak makes Samuel's story and his psychological processes of self-understanding -- like a "fairy tale" -- allegorical, applicable to any period of life.

The result is powerful. You can follow the novel into deep, dark aspects of ordinary, everyday experiences -- even if the novel's events seem extraordinary. On the other hand, if you enjoy the visceral intensity of the extraordinary and "abnormal," you won't be disappointed either. And, perhaps more interestingly, you can follow the novel into the experiences of repulsion, discomfort, "sick" curiosity, fascination, etc., that you have as you read the novel -- not because the novel simplistically judges those experiences as right and wrong, but because it is the dynamics and patterns of those experiences that the novel portrays from so many different angles.

There's much more to the Sang Pak's novel that what I can outline here -- much could be said about Samuel relationship to his father and brother, and how each of them relates to the death of Samuel's mother. "Wait Until Twilight" is a complex story of the several ways Samuel comes of age and comes to understand himself. In turn, the story is brilliantly intertwined with the deep psychology -- sometimes represented literally, sometimes symbolically; sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly -- at work in Samuel's experiences and development. "Wait Until Twilight" is certainly the sort of novel that you can read at various levels of depth, depending on your reading preferences.

The more I think through the "Wait Until Twilight," the more I am impressed with its intricacies. For all of these reasons, I'll definitely be reading it a second time.

Sang Pak's debut novel, "Wait until Twilight," is probably the strangest coming-of-age novel I have ever experienced - and I have read dozens of them over the years. Pak's novel has a bit of the feel of Stephen King's famous coming-of-age novel, "Carrie," but the horror in "Wait until Twilight" has nothing to do with the supernatural. Instead, Pak's main character becomes obsessed with the existence of three terribly deformed triplets whose mother claims they were immaculately conceived.

Sixteen-year-old Samuel has had to do a lot of growing up in recent months. What was once a normal family of four is now down to just Samuel and his father because, after their mother's death, Samuel's brother left home to attend college. Samuel's father, grieving the loss of his wife, works longer hours than ever and Samuel finds himself alone much of the time.

Despite his good grades, Samuel is a bit of a rebel at his small-town-Georgia high school, and many of his friends have a similar attitude about school. Samuel, however, is more fortunate than most of his friends are because his teachers, aware of his home life, are willing to cut him some slack as long as his grades remain high. Samuel is happy enough to take advantage of the situation but things get complicated when, after struggling to come up with an idea for his class video project, he decides to verify and document the existence of the deformed triplets.

Samuel's first look at the triplets leaves him utterly horrified and repulsed by what he sees, yet he becomes so obsessed about the welfare of the babies that he cannot stay away from the old house where they live with their mother and a much older brother. It is his compulsion to see the babies again that ultimately exposes the shocking dark side of Samuel's own nature and, when he is caught snooping one time too many, lands him squarely in the path of a psychopath.

I will remember "Wait until Twilight" more for its mood and atmosphere than for its plot elements because, frankly, this is a creepy book, one filled with the kind of depravity seldom found in a serious coming-of-age novel. Samuel, despite the trauma of what he learns about himself, does a lot of growing during the course of Sang Pak's story but the book loses some of its potential impact as a result of its rather over-the-top ending. There is a lot to like about "Wait until Twilight," including its sympathetic main characters and its overall tone, but its less-than-satisfying ending overwhelms much of what precedes it.

Finally--a well-written, engaging, thought-provoking and imaginative Southern gothic! It's been awhile since I sat down to read a book and got through the entire novel without skipping a single line. Wait Until Twilight by Sang Park is easily one of the best coming-of-age novels I've read all year.

Set in the small Southern town of Sugweepo, Georgia, this poignant story about a sixteen-year-old boy's internal struggle to do the right thing is sure to charm readers. Samuel's narrative is a well-crafted, introspective look at his life a year after his mother's tragic death to cancer when he is struggling with adulthood and the choices that will define his life.

The story opens with Samuel and his friend David on their way to film a mother and her three deformed triplets for a school project. Mrs. Greenan claims her babies are the product of immaculate conception, and their birth defects simultaneously frighten and fascinate Samuel so deeply that he becomes physically ill. Following this strange visit, Samuel quickly becomes obsessed with thoughts about the babies and their abnormalities.

On his next visit, Samuel is nearly strangled to death on the porch by an unseen assailant. A third, illegal visit brings him into contact with the triplets' violent older brother Daryl, and this terrifying encounter convinces Samuel that the triples are in grave danger for their lives. Samuel finds himself unwittingly thrust into the position of savior, both to himself and the three babies, but will he make the right choice, or will circumstances--and fear--force the choice for him?

This story is a fresh, fast-paced read at only 229 pages. The first-person narratiion makes it easy to delve into Samuel's world, and the characters are well-constructed with engaging dialogue. I probably would have read the book straight through if not for the fact that it was started on the bus ride to work. I highly recommend it to everyone, and look forward to future novels by Sang Park.

I picked up this up at the local borders because of the cover and after reading the first chapter I bought it. The story revolves around a high school boy, Samuel, who comes across a set of deformed triplets and their psychotic adult brother whose name is oddly enough Daryl. This coincides with re-emerging emotional memories of his dead mother and it all comes together in the end in a dramatic and kind of fantastical way. At first the ending surprised me but then again, I thought this book was going to be a coming of age story in a southern gothic world...and it is. But by the time I finished, I realized it was also a fairy tale. Samuel is traversing a strange world of light and dark, of his inner and outer world, into an almost dreamlike realm where strange things seems oddly normal. While I would read a chapter it seemed intense but normal, but afterwards I realized just how strange it was. I liked this very much. What also surprised me was the depth there was to this simply written book. Everything seems to mean something that connects back to Samuel's psychological state and his journey that is helped along by a slew of friends and characters. There's a lot more going on here than a typical coming of age story. It's rare to find a book that's both unique and good. And even though it's a first novel that's not without its weaknesses, the amount of heart and guts contained in the story makes up for it.

This novel came to me highly recommended by someone whose opinion I trust. Rarely if ever do I read works by authors I don't know, but in this instance I am extremely grateful to have read this extraordinary first novel by Sang Pak. I have never posted a review here before, but this is something that I feel quite strongly about and I think it would appeal to many people who might not be aware of its existence.
Wait Until Twilight is equal parts coming of age drama and southern gothic novel. On the surface, it is the story of a young man in a small southern town who witnesses something deeply disturbing that has a profound impact on his psyche. It is ,however, MUCH deeper than that. Rather than rehash the plot, I just want to give my impressions of the book because it hit home with me on both an intellectual and very primal level.
Samuel, the novel's protagonist, sees something horrific while snooping around someone's home-an extremely deformed infant that both repulses and fascinates him. Through an unlucky turn of events, the inhabitants of the home find him and he comes face to face with the child's mother and her twisted, sadistic son. The psychotic son is in many ways a reflection of the darkness within Samuel and indeed within all of us. He is forced to come to terms with the fact that he himself is capable of extremely violent behavior that he never would have dreamed possible.
Clearly Pak's background in psychology has had a great impact on his writing, because his character development is spot- on. Being a southerner myself, it is also quite clear that he has a profound understanding of the mentality of small town people as well. He somehow manages to function as both an outsider and an insider in this subject matter.
I hope that I do not give the impression that this is some overdone drama.-the prose is concise and clean enough that the reader can decide for themselves if they wish to enjoy the book as the outstanding novel that it is or they may seek to dig a bit deeper. In either case they will be extremely pleased with the result.

The story is about a young man by the name of Samuel who comes across a very strange family. There's the shut in mother and her three deformed triplets and the absolutely insane son, Daryl. Samuel becomes strangely disgusted and obsessed with the triplets and the insane son, Daryl, gets obsessed with Samuel. All the while Samuel is processing the loss of his mother. From this emerges a wild and surreal story written in the most matter of fact way. The key for me was that I fell in love with the Samuel quickly and from then on I wanted to see what happened and many things do happen. Whether it's a run in with some crazy bikers at a field party or a nightmare moment at the carnival or breaking out of school suspension everything has a tension to it and that connects back to the crazy family and his dead mother. Then there are occasional bursts of intense violence and darkness. Especially the ones with Daryl, who sometimes really made it hard to continue reading. This character was truly dark and scary. But the whole thing revolves around Samuel and his slow transformation. I will say the imagery is strong and the book seemed very cinematic. A film version of this book would be very very interesting indeed.

Samuel Polk is a sophomore in high school. With his brother in college and his mother dead, it's just him and his dad. The story starts out as a sort of mystery. Samuel has a video project in school and decides to check out a set of triplets. Neighbors say the babies are aliens. The mother calls then miracles because they were "immaculately concepted." For Samuel, the babies repulse him to the point he becomes physically ill. So disturbed by his behavior, the triplets become an obsession of sorts.

About midway through, the book takes on a bizarro world style that has me questioning if I missed something. It isn't until Samuel leaves town to visit with his brother that the book starts to feel like a coming-of-age story. The very end matches the first half of the story as the mystery from the beginning is revealed. For me, the three - mystery, bizarre, and coming-of-age, didn't blend well. Of all three, the mystery angle interested me most, but that might just have been a preference on my part.

No doubt, Sang Pak is clearly talented and though this book left me with a less than satisfied feeling, I'd like to read more books by him in the future.

Wait Until Twilight is a coming of age story of Samuel, a 16 year old who is learning how to live his life without his mother who recently died of a brain tumor. His brother, Jim is attending college in a nearby town and has become somewhat estranged from the family. His father a shop owner, is busy with making a living for his two sons while coping with the loss of his wife. All three seem to be a bit lost.

Sam's father has an immense trust in him, which Sam seems to have genuinely earned. He is an above average student with plans of college and proves to be a respectful young man but not above casually learning what it's like to take a drink, smoke or have sex. Regardless he always stays focused on his goals. A school project brings him to the doorstep of a neighbor to film her baby triplets, rumor has it that they are deformed and that is where the story really starts. Mrs. Greenan has an adult son Daryl, whom she shelters. He seems to have something seriously wrong with him. Sam has several encounters with Daryl and learns first hand of his violent pattern of behavior. The naivety of youth can create situations that adults would never find themselves in and Sam is pushed into doing something he would never have done but finds the threat too great not to do it.

This story is well written, with the characters feeling very real to me. The pace of the book is just right and the descriptions of Sam's dreams help set the stage for the end of the book. This book would be an interesting one for book clubs to discuss, as there is more to the story than what is on the surface. This is an excellent first book by Sang Pak.

I am always drawn to coming-of-age stories so WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT by Sang Pak sounded like a book that I would definitely enjoy. I thought the idea behind this novel sounded pretty unique -- a young boy who is battling both an external enemy as well as his own internal demons, but I can honestly say that this book was not what I was expecting. I'm not even sure WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT is like any book I've ever read. It was part horror, part Gothic, part coming-of-age, and part fantasy; and it also had some humor thrown in.

After I finished reading WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT, I wasn't sure what to even say about this book (and you know I usually don't have a lack of words); however, as I reflect back on this story, there are a lot of things to appreciate. I hesitate to say that I enjoyed reading WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT because I found it to be a very difficult read. I don't mean that the writing wasn't good or the characters weren't developed because I think both of those things were very well done. I just mean that this book messed with my mind, and I was very uncomfortable reading parts of it.

The more I thought about my discomfort, the more I realized how well the author told this story. I was actually squirming at times while reading WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT and I even found my heart racing. I think Mr. Pak did an incredible job of creating and building suspense, and I actually could feel Samuel's terror. I now appreciate how this book made me feel (even though I was really freaked out) because I am rarely affected by books this way. Having said all of that, I have to warn you that this story isn't for the faint of heart!

I liked Samuel for this most part (he was a teenager and you know how that can be) and there is no doubt that my heart went out to him because he lost his mom at such an impressionable age. But I had no idea how attached I became to him while reading this book. Once again, I think this is a testament to how well the author told this story and developed Samuel's character. I think the story was better because it was told in Samuel's voice; and I thought he was a very real, albeit troubled, teenager. As I read this book, I found myself desperately wanting Samuel to find some peace in his life; however, I admit that I was skeptical that he could. Without giving too much away, I am so very grateful to the author that the book ended the way it did!

I was very impressed with Mr. Pak's writing especially since WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT is his debut novel. At times, I was blown away by the honestly of his writing as well as his characters. I definitely appreciated how he incorporated Samuel's dreams into the story and how he used light/darkness/twilight to establish the moods of the novel -- I thought it was all very well done. Mr. Pak is currently on a break from a graduate program in psychology, and I thought it was evident in this novel that he has a strong background on this subject matter.

There is no doubt that WAIT UNTIL TWILIGHT will make you think -- on so many levels! I am definitely recommending it as a book club selection, if your book club wants something a bit unusual. There are wonderful discussion questions -- I absolutely loved them -- that will help facilitate your discussion. In fact, I liked the book even more after I went through the questions and thought about my answers.

a great debut by a promising young author, though not for the faint of heart. intense story with deep emotional resonance.