Angels of Destruction: A Novel (Roughcut)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Mee Maw, New Mexico, Norah Quinn (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tweaking some thematic elements of his previous novel, The Stolen Child, Donohoe now tells the story of Norah, a nine-year-old who appears on the doorstep of Margaret Quinn, a widow living a solitary existence in a small Pennsylvania town in 1985. Margaret eagerly takes in Norah to make up for the loss of her own daughter, Erica, who disappeared 10 years earlier after running away to join the Angels of Destruction, a West Coast revolutionary group. Margaret passes off Norah as her granddaughter and enrolls her in school, where Norah becomes friendly with a boy who's been abandoned by his father. Complications ensue when Margaret's sister arrives and has to be convinced that Norah is Erica's daughter. Sandwiched between the story of Margaret and Norah's unusual relationship is the flashback narrative of teenage Erica's road adventures with her boyfriend on their way to join the Angels of Destruction. Norah's unexplained origins form the enigmatic core of this story, and though she comes across as more of a novelistic conceit than a flesh and blood character, the novel movingly illustrates the quest for connection hardwired into every human heart. (Mar.)
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From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Elizabeth Hand By day, Keith Donohue is the consummate Washington bureaucrat, toiling away in the National Archives. But when he's not approving grants for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, he's summoning strange, fey creatures for his marvelous novels. Donohue's first book, "The Stolen Child" (2006), was a surprise bestseller that recast Irish folklore in a mid-20th-century American setting. His new work, "Angels of Destruction," similarly finds the miraculous in the everyday by exploring the fissures that grief leaves in the life of Margaret Quinn, whose only child, Erica, left home at 17 and has not been seen since. The novel opens on a bitterly cold night in 1985, when the now-widowed Margaret hears a knock at the door of her suburban home. She opens it to find a bespectacled girl in a ragged coat, half-frozen, a battered suitcase between her legs. The girl identifies herself as Norah, an orphan; but Margaret immediately imagines a different identity for her. "On her fingertips, she calculated the years, thinking all the while of the possibilities. Her daughter had been gone for a decade, and the girl appeared to be just shy of nine. Old enough to be her own granddaughter, had such a child ever existed." Almost immediately, Margaret decides to pass the child off as Erica's, sent to live with her grandmother. Sean Fallon, a boy bereft by his father's abandonment, befriends the peculiar new student in his third-grade class and agrees to keep secret that she is not really Margaret's grandchild. His devotion to Norah blooms into the perplexed, grateful adoration of a lonely 9-year-old boy, at once dogged and heartbreaking. But Sean soon witnesses strange manifestations of Norah's distinctly unchildlike talents: She folds origami cranes, then makes them fly; she blows smoke rings that would make Gandalf envious. More disturbingly, one night Sean glances into her mouth and sees a galaxy of stars. Their brief winter idyll is shattered when Norah begins speaking of -- and even demonstrating -- signs and wonders to her classmates. The second part of "Angels of Destruction" flashes back to 1975. It shows the dissolution of the Quinn family as Erica falls in love with her high school sweetheart, Wiley. Erica's father (and Margaret's husband), Paul, steps from the shadows here. A doctor who served in the Army Medical Corps during World War II, Paul grows increasingly estranged from his daughter. Aflame with adolescent self-righteousness at what she perceives as her father's betrayal of his Hippocratic oath, Erica is drawn into an obsessive relationship with Wiley, and then into Wiley's own obsession with the Angels of Destruction, a group of West Coast radicals who fall somewhere between the Weathermen and the Symbionese Liberation Army. When Wiley decides to join the revolution, Erica goes with him on a surreal, violent journey reminiscent of David Lynch's "Wild at Heart." During a dreamy interlude along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, the runaway lovers take refuge in a woodland cottage occupied by a grief-wracked, perhaps mad, old woman and her granddaughter, an otherworldly, bespectacled child named Una. Echoes and presentiments of Norah's relationship to Margaret and Sean unfold. Part 3 returns to 1985, where the subtle linkings between past and future, grief and acceptance and, most of all, love in its myriad manifestations -- parental, sororal, sexual, divine -- converge and multiply in a remarkable, kaleidoscopic ending. In its depiction of a modern world where the inexplicable coexists with the commonplace, "Angels of Destruction" evokes many other works: Tony Kushner's "Angels in America"; films like Wim Wenders's "Wings of Desire" and Nancy Savoca's "Household Saints"; John Crowley's "Aegypt" tetralogy; Rilke's "Duino Elegies." Like the characters in these works, Margaret, Erica and Sean all entertain angels unawares. Or do they? Donohue never quite reveals the mystery at the heart of Norah's sudden appearance, and that makes "Angels of Destruction" all the more satisfying and, yes, believable. Literary and historical clues are scattered throughout: references to the atomic bomb; a spectral man in fedora and camel-hair coat who pursues Norah and haunts Margaret; and an oblique nod to the Liber Juratus, a 14th-century manuscript containing a roll call of angels. The talisman that both Norah and Una pass on to those they love is a child's teacup with a chip in it, which invokes Auden's great poem "As I Walked Out One Evening": "The crack in the tea-cup opens / A lane to the land of the dead." "Angels of Destruction" doesn't shrink from the tragedies and inevitable separations that dog us. The book's coda is beautiful and wrenching, yet still leaves its protagonists and readers open to the possibility that the miraculous, once glimpsed, might recur. "Love is not consolation, it is light," wrote Simone Weil. In these bleak times, we can thank Donohue for opening a door in a darkened room.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Roughcut: 368 pages
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books (March 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307450252
• ISBN-13: 978-0307450258
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #438,418 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read between the lines, March 19, 2009

By	Mistress Moon (Planet Earth) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This book says much about the human condition, especially about the relationship between parent and child. The author paints so well in words the way we interact only on the surface, and fail to truly communicate our deepest hopes, loves, and fears. At moments, the book is heart-wrenching, not so much for what is said, but for what is unsaid. The characters are drawn so realistically, that when I was finished reading, I wanted to know what the future held for these people. The fantasy aspect to this book leaves much for one to question, but again, is that not part of the human condition?

I recommend this book to anyone that enjoys the fantastic, the painful, the hopeful, and the thoughtful. It grabs you by the heart from page one and does not let go. For those that have read The Stolen Child, I found this book to be superior, especially in terms of character development.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange, moving and beautiful..., March 19, 2009

By	Tracey Salbacka - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this second novel by a talented author, the story flows along so beautifully that the reader does not want to skip one syllable for fear of missing something wonderful. At times sad,yet with hope always underlying every chapter,the story was easy to love. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys something different and likes to be surprised by their books.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!!, July 31, 2009

By	Yolanda S. Bean (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

I think that Keith Donohue's second book is wonderful! It shared the same magical flair as his first book, _The Stolen Child_. This book ended with me wanting more - more of this story, more of his beautiful words, anything. The way he strings words together is simply artful. I enjoyed the use of time and mystery in this novel, not to mention the rich characters. It was completely engrossing. I am already looking forward to his next book.