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Hold the Dark: A Novel Hardcover – September 8, 2014

3.8 out of 5 stars 69 customer reviews

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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Liveright; 1 edition (September 8, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0871406675
  • ISBN-13: 978-0871406675
  • Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #874,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

Format: Hardcover
To call Hold The Dark a literary thriller is do the book a disservice. Sure, fans of the thriller will find that this one holds its own against the best of them. In fact, in terms of surprise and satisfaction, the plot turn at the end puts most work in that genre to shame. But the whole thriller thing is just the candy-coating for the themes Giraldi wrestles with--think Cormack McCarthy without the pretension, Nietzsche with a better sense of humor and narrative drive. The book sets Greek tragedy in contemporary Alaska to see if 2,000 years of human history since Sophocles nets us some new conclusions, and it throws in some seriously high-caliber weaponry to keep this investigation of human wildness from ever going dry.

And Giraldi's sentences...well, this is what great literature should always, always do: first the surprise, then the recognition. The novel is worth the hardcover price just to see Giraldi describe cold weather--descriptions so true that every writer will kick herself for not having had the eye to notice and the talent to say. Shoud be required reading for every MFA student who wants to know how to construct a sentence.

My only complaint is that there wasn't more of the character Core in quieter times. He's a character interesting enough to propel a wholly different kind of novel--a domestic novel or an academic novel, even a picaresque about his earlier life as a nature writer. I don't know, maybe there's a prequel in the future?
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Format: Hardcover
Hold the Dark is a gripping if not entirely realistic story of loss, vengeance and strange redemption taking place in a remote Alaskan village. The book has a eeriness to it enveloped by the setting - cold, windy and isolated Alaska. Nature is the main character here - as if it causes the characters to act in ways normal people don't (I won't give the spoiler away but I for one was genuinely surprised). Other reviews have summarized the plot, which is fast paced with deeply drawn characters. However, at times, the similes, metaphors and attempts at describing physical nature and human nature in overly MFA literary style with words most people don't know the meaning of can be distracting and overwhelming (everything is "like" something else or "as if" something else). He writes "Like" a Cormac McCarthy wannabe (whereas McCarthy gets it right all the time and consistently this author has hits and misses with his allegorical descriptions). I also found one of the later chapters annoying and very lazily arrived at- all of a sudden everything became clear to the characters (oh my, I just remembered she said X therefore the answer to our mystery must be Y!) I might have written a nicer review had I not googled the author after reading the book (wanting to learn more about him as I was captivated by this book). His claim to fame is a 2012 review in the NYT Book Review of two books by Alex Ohlin (whom I've never read and know nothing about). The review is possibly the meanest, most condescending, self aggrandizing and hyper critical review of any art form I've ever seen and caused me to intensely dislike this author. There was much controversy over whether Giraldi was honestly reviewing the book or seeking attention for himself with his extreme venom (I for one found the review poorly written and incomprehensible at times). Finding out the guy is so unlikable unfortunately ruined by afterglow with this book and as a result I won't read him again. .
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Format: Hardcover
In Alaska, the remote village of Keelut is suffering famine that has turned the wilderness savage, children stolen from outside their cabins to slake the hunger of wolves. The winds howl with the mourning voices of those who cannot reclaim what has been taken in nature’s cruel order: “When kids are killed, the future dies.” Authorities avoid the village, knowing they will find no answers from those who resist intruders, take care of their own. All the more surprising then, when grieving mother Medora Sloane begs author Russell Core to help her find her six-year-old son, Bailey, or at least his bones for burial. Having written a book on wolves, Core has a deep affinity for their ways, their intelligence, unsure why this woman might think he could help, yet drawn by her need and his own flirtation with a place where death might come easily to a weary traveler.

Knowing nothing of this place or these people, Core finds Medora a surprise, bright-haired and white-skinned, certainly an anomaly among the others. Sleeping on the couch in a tiny cabin where the boy’s empty boots are a reminder of his absence, Core cannot but be aware of the mother’s murmuring at night, her vigil by the window, her incantations to the moon. Medora’s husband, Vernon, is due to return any day from a tour of duty in the Middle East, his brutal reality in the shifting sands across the globe in stark contrast to the blinding snow that covers Keelut, portending a difficult, if impossible search, Russell dressed in Vernon’s hunting garb and boots.

As anticipated, the journey proves fruitless, though Core barely escapes the snarling wolves he tracks in search of the boy.
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Format: Paperback
Why does this book get such good reviews? Florid writing with a policeman continually reminding our wolf expert that he doesn't know much about the area he's in and the harshness of nature. As for discussing mans place in nature this has nothing to do with it. The vast areas of nature we deal with are not the artic and it is no measure of humankind how we fit into the arctic.
The town is a bunch of folks who come from somewhere else (per the text) and don't talk but there seem to be indirect references that these folks are natives but blond and blue eyed(?). The main characters besides the wolf expert are two sociopaths. The surprise is (spoiler alert) that these two are in an incestuous relationship. Somehow because of this they are cursed. Well surprise, surprise humans have been having "incestuous" relationships forever. Most of the time without negative results, some
madness in the Spanish dynasties and hemophilia in some other dynasties. Not a big deal in most societies. Lots of people die for no apparent reason and nobody goes after the killers. The woman wants to kill the man but can't...... The policeman who has just gone through a gun battle and watched 5 or 6 of his men killed tells the killer to put down his weapon and then goes off with an old wolf expert to find this killer. The more I write the sillier I realize the book is. Are we really so misled by sentences that try to sound profound and graphic descriptions of violence that we call this literature?
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