Land of the Blind - Softcover

Walter, Jess

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060989289 ISBN 13: 9780060989286

Publisher: HarpPeren, 2005

Synopsis

In Land of the Blind, Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist and author of Citizen Vince and The Zero, explores the bonds and compromises we make as children—and the fatal errors we can make at any time in our lives. Fiendishly clever and darkly funny, Land of the Blind follows Caroline Mabry, a weary police detective racing against the clock to investigate both a murder and two men’s darkly intertwined lives.

About this title

Review:

Jess Walter, a reporter whose first novel fictionalized the true crime story of a serial killer in Spokane, Washington, (Over Tumbled Graves) has penned a riveting, elegiac thriller about a middle-aged man who wants Spokane police detective Caroline Mabry to witness his confession to a crime that hasn't yet been discovered. As Clark Mason writes the long story of a childhood friendship gone horribly wrong, readers will shudder, remembering their own tortured adolescence and revisiting it in that of Eli Boyle, whose physical and social awkwardness made him a natural target for his peers. Back then, even Clark joined the crowd in making fun of Eli. But he also showed him some kindness--enough to make Eli agree to let Clark turn his fantasy game, Empire, into a high-tech start-up years later, and to bankroll Clark's run for Congress. But when the technology boom goes bust and Clark's dreams run out of steam, Eli makes a last, frightening bid for what he's always wanted--revenge on those who made his childhood hell, including the woman Clark has loved since high school. Walter's abilities as a prose stylist and his sense of narrative tension shine through in this extremely well written novel, which is far stronger than his first, but shares its deep sense of time and place. --Jane Adams

From the Back Cover:

In this fiendishly clever and darkly funny novel, Jess Walter speaks deeply to the bonds and compromises we make as children -- and the fatal errors we can make at any moment in our lives.

While working the weekend night shift, Caroline Mabry, a weary Spokane police detective, encounters a seemingly unstable but charming derelict. "I'd like to confess," he proclaims. But he insists on writing out his confession in longhand. In the forty-eight hours that follow, the stranger admits to not just a crime, but an entire life: a wry and haunting tale of poverty and politics, of obsession and revenge. And as he writes, Caroline pushes herself to near collapse, racing against the clock to investigate not merely a murder, but the story of two men's darkly intertwined lives.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarpPeren
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060989289
• ISBN 13: 9780060989286
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 309