The Desperate Season - Hardcover

Blaine, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688164412 ISBN 13: 9780688164416

Publisher: William Morrow, 1999

Synopsis

In the frozen isolation of a remote country cabin, a young man holds his mother, father, and sister at gunpoint. As their survival hangs in the balance, they must face a terrifying reality: The shadow of madness looms closer than we choose to acknowledge-and sometimes, it is born of our own flesh and blood.

It begins, as shocking events usually do, with a simple lapse in judgment: On February 26, Maurice Coleman is prematurely released from the institution where he is being treated for schizophrenia. After dumping his medications into a stream and buying a semiautomatic, Maurice makes his way through the bitter snow to his parents' secluded hunting cabin. There, he demands from them the truth-with threats that are at once vividly delusional and unmercifully violent. And from the members of the broken family that both love and fear him we learn of their complicity in Maurice's sickness: Moira, the estranged mother who offers little comfort to Maurice; Nathan, the ex-husband and devoted father who showers his son with a dangerous, unconditional love; Crissie, the younger sister who befriends, despises, and ultimately sees her brother as only a sibling can; and Vince, an outsider with a secret who finds himself drawn into the final, fateful confrontation.

A visceral, relentlessly compelling novel of true literary achievement, The Desperate Season captivates as it terrifies, with a psychological power that will resonate long after its haunting conclusion.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Blaine's fiction has appeared in literary magazines including The New England Review, The North American Review, New Letters, Shenandoah, and The Village Voice Literary Supplement, among others. Founder and editor-in-chief of New York Stories, Blaine divides his time between New York City and upstate New York. He lives with his wife, the artist and photographer Rose Mackiewicz.

From Publishers Weekly:

An expertly realized account of mental illness, family trauma and violence, this first novel combines literary power with all-too-clear contemporary relevance. In the events at its harrowing center, Maurice, a young schizophrenic, stages a massacre with a semiautomatic rifle. The narration divides among six characters, beginning and ending with Maurice himselfAa risky but ultimately successful device that allows readers to establish an empathy that balances the horror of the acts Maurice commits after escaping from the local mental hospital near his home in the Upper Catskills. Buying a semiautomatic with distressing ease, Maurice seeks out his divorced parents for a confrontation that quickly envelops the entire town. Maurice's father, Nathan, is a local bank president who loves Maurice unconditionally, but has a dark side of his ownAhe finances his gambling habit by embezzling from accounts. Moira, Maurice's selfish mother, balances her love with fear: "Under the influence of his medication he's so calm he seems like a Buddhist. No, it's finding a way to speak to him. Groping for something to say is agony... " Soon, Maurice is holding his parents and sister, Chrissie, hostage. Also drawn in is Vince, a lawyer with a son of his own to raise, a love affair (now finished) with Moira and a secret reason to care for Maurice. Blaine's narrative never descends to exploitation of the teen violence in current headlines: instead, it's determinedly literary, psychologically acute, disturbing in the best sense of that word. In his remote and claustrophobic upstate mountain towns, Blaine creates a landscape as unforgiving as Maurice's mind. But his best creation is Maurice himself, a brilliant, sometimes charming young man who has the burden of perceiving the world in a way alien to the rest of us. 10-city author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0688164412
• ISBN 13: 9780688164416
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304