Acts of Revision - Hardcover

Bedford, Martyn

3.26

128 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385482736 ISBN 13: 9780385482738

Publisher: Doubleday, 1996

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Living a solitary life and scarred by a childhood trauma, Gregory Lynn discovers a box of his grade school reports and relives several painful experiences from his youth

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Review:

Gregory Lynn must have had a very bad childhood because, when he uncovers his old school papers from his mother's attic after her death, he sets about to commit some "acts of revision" on his former teachers. Yet there is more to this novel than a story of revenge. It is a beguiling tale told through a series of interviews with Gregory, who mixes fact with fiction and whose reality is often more distorted than his fantasy. In this regard, the book becomes both a chilling thriller and a twisted look at the nature of recorded narrative, a unique combination that results in an intriguing adventure.

From the Publisher:

"The court will not be persuaded to accept that these were 'legitimate acts of revenge. . .'

"Acts of revision is what I said." Gregory Lynn is thirty-five years old. A bachelor, an only child from the age of four-and-a-half. Scarred by childhood trauma, he lives a solitary life, sequestered in his London house, drawing cartoon fantasies to pass the daysBut the world has a way of creeping in. Gregory's mother dies. And he discovers, in a dusty box in the attic, the long-forgotten school reports whose words are the unending refrain of a man sentenced to failure at an early age. Must work. Little progress. Disappointing.

Gregory Lynn reads, and remembers: teachers and subjects, names and places. The history teacher who humiliated him. Lynn, that's a girl's name, isn't it? The geography teacher who threatened to expel him. The gym teacher who called him donkey. And on and on. As methodically as a professor laying out a lesson plan, Gregory Lynn prepares for the cold-blooded acts of revision that will even the score with those who made him the way he is--seven deadly subjects in all.Acts Of Revision plunges readers into the mind of Gregory Lynn --a place at once terrifying and irresistible, where fantasy and reality, guilt and innocence blur beyond recognition. Literate and mesmerizing, by turns shocking and blackly hilarious, Acts Of Revision is a utterly unique debut from a writer of uncommon promise.

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