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An Einem Tag Im Januar (2012)

by Christopher Coake(Favorite Author)

3.46 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

3442301106 (ISBN13: 9783442301102)

languge

English

genre

Paranormal Fantasy

publisher

Goldmann

review 1: I picked this novel up after reading and thoroughly enjoying the author's previous book, a collection of short stories called 'We're in Trouble.' Christopher Coake's first novel, 'You Came Back,' tells the story of thirty-something Mark Fife, a man who's finally moving on after losing his family. About seven years earlier, his young son died in an accident; the grief and stress drives a wedge between Mark and his wife, and she eventually divorces him. In the present day, Mark is doing much better and getting ready to remarry. All that is compromised when a strange woman appears with an even stranger tale. She now resides in Mark's old house and claims that his dead son is haunting it. Now, if you're thinking this is a ghost story, it really isn't. There are suspensefu... morel moments throughout the book when you're not exactly sure where the story is heading, but, largely, it's more a story about relationships and trying to move on when the absolute worst thing ever happens - the death of a child. Mark, a longtime atheist, initially reacts in anger, refusing to believe that his son is now a ghost still dwelling in his old home. He's never believed in an afterlife, but can he ignore the slimmest possibility that what this strange woman claims could be true? Could his dead son really be reaching out for him? And if so, what will he do about it? And what could the boy want? I enjoyed how the author plays with the possibilities here, not letting on right away how the story will wind up. He does a good job of making it plausible that Mark's son really has come back from the grave. It's also just as possible that Mark and his ex-wife are so desperate to have their son back, they're willing to believe anything. It's a sad story overall and doesn't work out well for everyone, but there is a glimpse of hope by the end. I enjoyed this novel and look forward to reading whatever Mr. Coake comes up with next.
review 2: A good book, well written and well constructed. Good depiction of a variety of characters, some likeable, some arduous and some that you just remain undecided about. A book that details in frank terms the fallout, grief and devastation that can occur when a child is lost and how this grief can ripple through the lives and emotions of all those who surround us, intimately, and on a more grand scale. The ghost of Brendan exists in this book in not only the ghost that they are "seeking" in its real sense, but remains a constant, hypothetical, force, driving Mark and Chloe into situations, decisions and choices that are not natural and not the obvious choice for happiness. In this way the book can be read as an warning, a fable if you like, that living in the past only ever has repercussions for the future. By living in the past all we do is hurt ourselves and repeat the same mistakes over and over. This is illustrated in the direct opposition at the end of the book between Mark - stronger, healthier, (lighter), happier, chosen to live with the decisions he makes and the hand that life has dealt him. He choses to fight for his new baby daughter and Allie by starting a new life. Take this compared to Chloe, haunted, post overdose buying their old house, maintaining a friendship with Connie and desperately searching for the ghost of a dead little boy. The trajectory of these characters has always been tramline straight together until this point. Mark, desperate, alcoholic sad, unable to commit and be honest with Lew, Sam and Allie the only person to find solace with Chloe. Chloe, angry, using prescription meds to take away her pain. However, after the seance and the overdose, the paths split, like a zipper thus illustrating the allegory between light and dark, happiness and sadness, life and death. I enjoyed the way in which Coake uses negative analogies - "The appearance of each house as familiar as the ache of an old wound" always reflecting the sadness and foreboding that grief represents for Mark. The sentence structure also compounds this, " Brendan had always been required to hold Marks hand alongside it [the road]. His hand was empty now." These short sentences compel the reader to constantly consider, then and now, light and dark, life and death. In this way - this book is not a Ghost Story, it is a story about love, and grief, lose and choices. It is an fable about the warning of living ones life in the past. Coake invites his reader to consider this and illustrates through his writing that by coming out of the dark and making choices to live in the future we can all be happier people. less

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