Icelander (Hardcover)

by Dustin Long (Author)
Key Phrases: steam pool, Our Heroine, Hubert Jorgen, Magnus Valison (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Nabokov meets Lemony Snicket in this manic Chinese box version of a mystery. The story, on the surface, is a whodunit set in Iceland, but it's an Iceland of fictitious cities and fantastical underground lands, in which Our Heroine (the only name given to the book's central character) searches for her lost dog while resisting and then reluctantly solving the mystery of who murdered her best friend. The book's multiple narrators include the grownup Our Heroine, a Hollywood actor, a pair of detectives whose style of speech owes more than a little to Yoda, the murder victim's husband, an Icelandic gossip columnist, and the overnarrator who speaks through the book's 53 footnotes, Prefatory Note, Prelude and Afterword. Through all of this ancillary material, the overnarrator refers to a series of mystery novels featuring Our Heroine's now-dead mother and now-demented father and their nemesis, an Icelandic Moriarty. The murder victim herself speaks through notes she has left behind, one of which reads: "We must create incomprehensible things in order to have an analogy for our incomprehension of the universe." Perhaps it's not quite the imperative she thought. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Long aspires to the linguistic acrobatics of Nabokov and Pynchon in this clever but somewhat tedious mystery debut. The tale revolves around the daughter of Emily Bean-Ymirson, a criminologist and anthropologist, who, along with her Icelandic husband, Jon, solved a slew of cryptic cases before her death in 1985. (Fictional scholar Magnus Valison has novelized the late Bean's diaries in 12 volumes, matter-of-factly titled The Memoirs of Emily Bean.) Emily's daughter, known only as Our Heroine, reluctantly takes up her mother's work following the untimely demise of Shirley MacGuffin (yes, the name is a nod to Hitchcock), a "continually aspiring" author who pens insufferably pretentious prose. Even the most patient readers may find themselves exhausted by Long's legions of footnotes and excessive narrative shifts. There's also the strange cast, which fills a three-page list and includes a rogue librarian, a pair of metaphysical detectives, and a missing dachshund with better breeding than any of the two-legged characters. Long is a talented wordsmith; pity he couldn't demonstrate his verbal dexterity in a more reader-friendly way. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: McSweeney's (March 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193241651X
• ISBN-13: 978-1932416510
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #805,996 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent first novel - hilarious and intriguing, March 13, 2006

By	C. Clarke (Bloomington, IN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is Dustin Long's first novel Icelander and I can't recommend this book highly enough. Although the premise is slightly confusing, you are soon caught up in the plot and by page fifty or so it becomes that rarest of things: a literary page-turner. The book focuses partly on the discovery, commercialization, and quest for independence of a fictional underground Icelandic kingdom called Vanaheim. Most of the action, however, takes place in the U.S.A. in upstate New Uruk on "Bean Day," a local celebration of the deceased adventuress Emily Bean, who along with her family discovered Vanaheim. Despite the book's humorous tone, there are a number of surprisingly moving characters - French-Canadian ex-cop Blaise Duplain struggling to come to terms with and solve the murder of his wife; Jon Ymirson an aging adventure hero stricken with Alzheimers; and his daughter "Our Heroine," in a Hamlet-like state of indecision over following in her deceased mother's adventure-seeking footsteps. At many points in the book I laughed out loud or marveled at the author's clever use of language. (Also watch for hidden clues throughout the book). My favorite parts include overly self-conscious actor Nathan, philosophical investigators Wible and Pacheco, the fox-shirted Refurserkir (guardians of Vanaheim), and rogue library scientist Hubert Jörgen. If you love (but don't mind poking fun at) mysteries, Nabokov, Norse mythology, adventure novels, literary pretentiousness, and Hamlet (the Thomas Kyd version) order the book!

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars PoMo--Chilled, May 9, 2006

By	Erik J. Carlson "GoWilliamPlomer!" (West Hollywood, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Icelander matches perfectly the tiny jacket's tiny description. It's a well-paced riff on the Agatha Christie stories with plenty of Icelandic lore thrown in for seasoning.

What it truly is, however, is another in a long line of Post Modern (PoMo) lit McSweeney's gets all wet for. How many more times are we expected to be impressed by the use of snappy (jarring) footnotes? I didn't like that style even the first time DFW did it.

Regardless, this book is by no means excessively PoMo. And for a first novel, it's very impressive indeed. It's never boring; the characters are interesting and well tracked. And it's often funny. Thankfully, it's exactly the right length. Something other young (is Dustin young?) writers should note.

Icelander is a unique, not quite brilliant, fast read. I imagine Dustin Long has written short stories for McSw in the past, and I look forward to seeking them out.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wild, intelligent fun, May 23, 2006

By	Tim MacD "book dude" (Ventura, CA) - See all my reviews

I can see how people might not like this book, not because it isn't great (it is) but because it's a type of book that doesn't appeal to everybody maybe. It's funny and mysterious, but it's not a straightforward mystery or comedy. It's thought-provoking. It's definitely one that needs to be read twice. But it's so fun that it's a pleasure both times. But that said, if you are scared off by books that require a little work, or by books that aren't exactly like everything else you're used to reading, then maybe this isn't the book for you. But if you're willing to try something different and new, then this just might become your favorite book of all time. I'm waiting for the third read before deciding on that issue.