A Density of Souls - Softcover

Rice, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1477826645 ISBN 13: 9781477826645

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer, 2014

Synopsis

Four childhood friends in present-day New Orleans are torn apart by envy, passion, and a secret murder.

Five years ago, Meredith, Brandon, Greg, and Stephen quickly discover the fragile boundaries between friendship and betrayal as they enter high school and form new allegiances. Meredith, Brandon, and Greg gain popularity, while Stephen is viciously treated as an outcast. Then two violent deaths destroy the already delicate bonds of their friendship.

When the friends are drawn back together, new facts about their mutual history are exposed and what was held to be a tragic accident is revealed as murder. As the true story emerges, other secrets begin to unravel with more dangerous, far-reaching consequences.

A Density of Souls is a stunning debut novel that uncovers the darker side of the teenage psyche.

About this title

Review

Take the sensuous, fecund New Orleans setting, add a generous helping of tangled Southern family history, and season liberally with a sensitive teenage boy rejected by his friends and frightened of his own homoerotic impulses and you wouldn't be surprised to discover that the novel containing all of the above was written by someone named Rice. But a few paragraphs into the first page, it's clear that Anne Rice's son's first novel isn't about vampires or witches and does not otherwise read like one of her exceedingly popular books. The only family resemblance is in the setting, the sexual orientation of the lovingly described male characters, and the scent of overripe magnolias.

There's murder, suicide, and madness at the heart of this rather clumsy coming-of-age story, which focuses on the youthful friendship of Stephen Conlin, Meredith Ducote, Greg Darby, and Brandon Charbonnet. This friendship is destroyed by a sexual incident that takes place just before the foursome enters Cannon, an exclusive prep school. There, Stephen is ostracized by his former friends, now the most popular kids on campus, who'd just as soon forget their own complicity in the event. Envy, passion, and rage drive the narrative, but the emotions are as juvenile as the characters, and the long passages depicting the rituals and cruelties of high school, from pep rallies to football games, slow down the pace without really illuminating character or motivation. The novel reads like a roman à clef. Rice might have been wiser to tell someone else's story rather than his own. --Jane Adams

About the Author

Born in San Francisco and raised in New Orleans from the age of ten, Christopher Rice published four New York Times bestsellers, received a Lambda Literary Award, and was declared one of People Magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive, all by the age of thirty. His debut novel, A Density of Souls, was greeted with a landslide of media attention, much of it an offshoot of his mother’s fame as a legendary vampire chronicler. His supernatural thriller The Heavens Rise was a Bram Stoker Award nominee. The InsightOut Book Club selected his book Blind Fall as a best novel of 2008. In addition, his noir thriller Light Before Day was hailed as a “book of the year” by Lee Child. He has served as a contributing columnist to The Advocate and has been published in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Salon.com. His short fiction has been featured in the anthologies Thriller and Los Angeles Noir.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1477826645
• ISBN 13: 9781477826645
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 371