The Shadow Knows (William Abrahams Book) (Paperback)

by Diane Johnson (Author) "1 You never know, that's all, there's no way of knowing..." (more)
Key Phrases: mah babies, John Henry, Famous Inspector, Big Raider (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The anonymous heroine, N, is a young woman who has broken free of a constricting marriage and is struggling to raise four children alone in a housing project. Coming home one day N finds her door hacked with an ax and smeared with what appears to be a mixture of blood and crankcase oil. A few days later a strangled cat is left outside her apartment door. Everyday, she is plagued by mysterious, disturbing phone calls. Playing detective and attempting to figure out who her enemy may be, N's real fears merge with paranoid fantasy in this fascinating story which rivals the best of Henry James's dark, psychological gothic tales.
• Johnson's most recent novel, Le Divorce, was a phenomenal success.
• Long out-of-print, this classic Diane Johnson novel is now available for all the readers of Le Divorce left hungry for more.
• The Shadow Knows received outstanding reviews.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Plume (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452277361
• ISBN-13: 978-0452277366
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #623,669 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wry, Tongue-in-Cheek Tale That Can Reach Many Women, September 12, 2002

By A Customer

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It has a tete-a-tete, intimate style (characteristic of many novels written by women from the '60s to the present). You feel as though you are talking to your best friend, who is telling in an informal way a fascinating story whose events are very bizarre and--and this is what makes this book brilliant--very familiar.

The protagonist speaks in the first person. It is the voice of a middle-class American housewife of the '60s. She is thoughtful and sensitive; she is perceptive; she is mild mannered--even a little self-effacing. She is a devoted and nurturing mother of several kids. She has a warm, gentle, bemused jenny-wren-like quality, not unlike many women we have known and loved.

She is recently divorced from her husband because they were emotionally incompatible.

Here's where the story starts to veer slightly to the left of center. The protagonist, although apparently middle class, is living in a public housing development, because divorce has left her in financial straits with several children to raise. And the character seems to become more anomalous when she starts getting death threats. She gets threatening telephone calls, finds dead animals placed on her car windshield, and threatening amulets in her mailbox. This gentle, mild-mannered, self-effacing, healthy, normal, and conscientious woman is being threatened with death.

For the rest of the novel, our heroine casts about in her thoughts, memories, and fantasies, with greater and greater intensity, to think of who might want to kill her.

And as she ponders this mystery, she puts together a longer and longer list of people who might like to kill her.

At this point, we begin to see the black humor peeping out of the structure of this novel, somewhat akin to ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. Femininity, daintiness, nurturance poised against death and violence.

And this is where the novel finally becomes most radical, most improbable, most bizarre. A wry, subtle humor becomes more and more apparent, as we realize that no matter how truly sweet, how mild mannered, how gentle, how nurturing this prototypical woman is, she still has a very long list of people who would like to kill her.

Diane Johnson makes us want to know who the culprit is, and at the same time she has us laughing and nodding in recognition--that women in general have many virulent enemies--even a woman of valor and sweetness; that the most stable, sane, and healthy people have bizarre currents running underneath their lives and threatening to engulf them.

And that, along with the author's brilliant writing style, is what endeared this book to me.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars well written but wearisome, July 5, 1998

By	Ellen O. Ingber "liliana111" (Westport, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Diane Johnson writes with great sensitivity and skill about a divorced woman with four children, a lover, and ANGST. Her protagonist's interior monologues describe the paranoia engendered by the dislocations and unpredictability of modern life. About halfway through the novel, I found the themes too repetitious and I stopped caring. My ennui ultimately marred my appreciation for this well-written novel.

5.0 out of 5 stars Answers in the Shadows of Life, June 14, 2008

By	Mr. Richard D. Coreno "Mr. C" (Berea, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Meet N.

She may be your next-door neighbor or someone who lives down the block. Maybe she is a relative or just a person you happen to see when shopping at the local grocery store. N. has struggles on the rugged track of life - divorced mother, rocky finances, a relationship falling apart - but it's the shadows which lurk in the deepest regions of the soul that seem to be consuming her.

Author Diane Johnson takes the reader on a wild ride of raw emotions, quirky feelings and fears as N. tries to find love - and answers - in all the wrong places. She does a masterful job in developing N. and a wealth of supporting characters, with each one playing a believable role in a story that is rich in imagery and a plot that - like life - takes an unpredictable twist in the end.

And the consequences to shine a strong light on those shadows may be very chilling.