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The Cradle (2009)

by Patrick Somerville(Favorite Author)

3.38 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0316036129 (ISBN13: 9780316036122)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Little, Brown and Company

review 1: This book feels so much like a re-told myth that I looked up a few reviews to see if some reviewer could clue me in on the origin story. As far as I can tell, there isn't one. Somerville uses the powerful tools of myth—magical object, a quest, characters who might have some supernatural stuff going on, and a riddle or two—along with the compression and fast pace of those old tales to make a new myth, one about the claiming of lost boys. Boys are abandoned and the past is buried, but as in the best work of Dan Chaon, the past surfaces in the present, and the good people try, at least, to make a new way, together.
review 2: Short, powerful, well-written and so touchingly sad but not maudlin, sweetly hopeful, wonderful characterization. All so impressive in a ... moredebut that I could finish in a few hours. Just .. wow. Sometimes you find these tender little jewels of books and are stunned at how good they are. Like Amy Bloom and Kent Haruf, I wonder where have you been and why aren't you winning prizes and making millions on slim beautiful books and why don't you write more. And then I remember I live in a world that idolizes Kardashians and teen vampire books and reality shows about trashy, tawdry idiots. Then I am thankful that such small goodness is there to take me away from popular American "culture." less

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