The Panic Hand (Hardcover)

by Jonathan Carroll (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
"I want you frowning now, knowing something is very wrong with your parachute even before actually pulling the cord and praying it opens. P.S. It won't." So Jonathan Carroll addresses his readers in this much-awaited collection of 20 stories. Author of several wry and dark novels, Carroll has a considerable following, but his books are difficult to pigeonhole, so some horror and fantasy readers are still unfamiliar with him. This collection shows off his talents admirably, in tales that range from bittersweet sadness over God's failing memory, to a disturbing friendship between a dog and a dying child, to a macabre fantasy about how men and women manipulate each other. As The New York Times put it, "Carroll's world is one that is subtly out of kilter, and which can take a turn for the sinister at any time." This volume is winner of the 1996 Bram Stoker Award for Best Short Story Collection.

From Publishers Weekly
Carroll (From the Teeth of Angels) has a high reputation in literary SF and fantasy circles. This collection of 20 pieces of his short fiction suggests that it is well deserved. He has a conspicuous knack for giving new dimensions to venerable themes. "Friend's Best Man," which won a World Fantasy Award in 1987, offers a new take on the revolt of the animals. "Uh-Oh City" does marvelous things with the Jewish folkloric concept of the 36 Just Men on whom the world depends. "Black Cocktail" explores, in sometimes grisly detail, not merely the group mind but the group soul. The title story is a chilling exploration of a handicapped child's use of alter egos to explore, among other things, adult sexuality. The narrator of "The Sadness of Detail" sits down in her favorite cafe, only to be interrupted by a stranger who shows her photographs of her husband and son in the future and tells her how she can alter their destinies?and her own. Carroll's stories are tightly focused, with hardly an ill-chosen or misplaced word. They are distinguished by a powerfully haunting quality that derives from a deceptively simple combination of fantastic events related in the easy voice of a raconteur telling simple anecdotes.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 295 pages
• Publisher: St Martin's Press; 1st US Ed edition (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312146981
• ISBN-13: 978-0312146986
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #765,129 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Time Between, December 20, 2000

By	Pauline Woodfin (Albany, Ca USA) - See all my reviews

If you are a Carroll fan, there is this void between his last book and next that can be filled by reading the Panic Hand. If you are not yet a fan, time's a wasting, get thee to a Carroll book! The stories in here are little vignettes of Carroll's creative mind: there are stories here that can be novels, movies, dreams and poetry. This book is a good text for the beginning writer--the plots and prose are well-crafted. Some of he stories--Sadness in Detail, being one--are best left as it is in the book-- a short story: what if God is forgetting the details? This and many of the stories question the reader and sometimes invite a brief journey into strange realms. I have stopped trying to place Carroll into a genre; I love his stories and that is enough.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Carroll at his top form, March 12, 2006

By	Aleksandra Nita-Lazar (MD, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a treat for Jonathan Carroll fans. If you like his special style (I know, not everyone likes him, but I do. I guess people either love him or hate him), you are in for a treat. The short stories in this collection are exactly what the readers like about him. The intriguing details of people's lives in the world where everyone has something special about them, be it a hobby, a phobia, a secret, a way of thinking; the magic springing out of nowhere, and the whole parallel supernatural universe created in his own, irreproducible manner. The same themes as in his novels are developed in more concise manner. The dogs, as always, are very significant and mysterious creatures. The dark corners of the characters' souls, where even they go only reluctantly, in dreams or in extreme circumstances, are explored. Death, childhood fantasies, painful and pleasant memories all form the unique mosaic of Carroll's world. All the stories are superb, although my absolute favorites are "Mr. Fiddlehead" (the last dialogue couldn't be better). "The Jane Fonda Room" and "My Zoondel". I like Carroll especially when I want to get away from the mundane surroundings and at the same time think about some universally important issues. I recommend this collection.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wild and Wonderful Fare, January 28, 2003

By	Glen Engel Cox "www.engel-cox.org" (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I hate to harp on it, but Jonathan Carroll has problems ending stories. I would like to say I don't care because even a partial story by Carroll is enough, but the truth is that I'm always left with a craving that you get when you read a story and you're wrapped up into it and you require completion. Supposedly American audiences require a "happy" completion, but I hope I'm beyond that. "Uh-oh City" has all the things that are quintessential Carroll: characters who are intrinsically interesting, a doozy of a "weirdness," and the, unfortunately, open ending. The premise is that there are 36 people who are God, but not individually, but collectively. One-thirty-sixth of God is still pretty much amazing, though, and when God(sub36) tells you that they are dying and you are next in line to become part of the 36thhood, what can you say? Complications ensue, as they usually do, and things are never as they seem in a Carroll story, but after the final twisty turn we reach the last sentence and we are still on the precipice of understanding, and need a final push to put us over...and it never comes.

The other stories here are more of the same wild, wonderful fare. THE PANIC HAND was originally published in Germany with a slightly different table of contents. I own a copy of that book, but being unable to read German was slightly hampered in trying to understand the stories. Carroll's better at the long form--his favorite literary device is the untrustworthy narrator, and it takes at least 50 pages to set up a story with one of those that won't annoy the reader. Even still, his tendency for the twist and his incredible way of creating characters that you would like to know in a few sentences is enjoyable even in the short form.