- Mass Market Paperback
- Publisher: Ivy Books; Reprint edition (Dec 4 1993)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0804111618
- ISBN-13: 978-0804111614
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.7 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 91 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,692,160 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The secret life of a successful Chicago real-estate developer who murders a woman he meets through a personal ad is the subject of Theroux's forceful and disturbing novel.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Parker Jagoda, the central figure of this disturbing tale, is the latest in a series of Theroux characters who lead double lives. In one, he is a successful businessman with a family, flashy car, and house in the Chicago suburbs. In the other, he is a shadowy social chameleon who invents new identities hourly as he rushes to secret rendezvous with women he meets through personal ads. After he murders one of these women in a manner that leads the tabloids to dub him the "Wolfman," his two selves violently collide. Guilt forces him to face the monster beneath his slick yuppie veneer and sends him hurtling toward a fatal attempt at atonement. Mixing elements of social satire, psychological study, and thriller, Theroux presents a bleak vision of contemporary life--a world in which people divorced from nature, society, and self act out their darkest impulses. Recommended for most libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/90.
- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bizarre Tour with a Lunatic In Chicago, USA.,
By
This review is from: Chicago Loop (Hardcover)
The main character here may be the perfect "dual" personality, that we read about in psychiatric texts. A successful,handsome, fit 35 year old with a nice (slightly kinky) wife, who seems to love him, a happy 6 month old boy,BMW, House in the "Burbs, good job in real estate development. One wonders how this guy even began on his quest to Singles Scene Ads, violence, cross dressing, and general bizarre behavior. When he strolls thru a Mapplethorpe exhibit with his wife, and a friend of the "artist", he seems as normal as you or I. Granted, he has some strange "dates" in a sleazy Chicago Hotel room, but they are with his wife, after all! So you wonder how this guy gets to be so weird! Mr. Theroux pulls off this difficult task of convincing the reader that it all happens, and the reader gets a grand tour through some of the seamiest sides of Chicago, not to mention humanity itself! Another star in the vast opus of the supertalented Mr. Paul Theroux!
4.0 out of 5 stars
a solid, easily misunderstood novel,
By A Customer
This review is from: Chicago Loop (Hardcover)
The few negative reviews posted here can, in my opinion, be discounted. If you're looking for likeable characters or a taut crime sage, er... you picked up the book. This is as chilling an account of a psychotic's interior life as one is likely to read (it buries Ellis' similarly-themed, far less insightful "American Psycho). The protagonist, Parker, isn't simply unlikeable, he is - for a time - eerily unknowable, and the book's greatest acheivement is how it mirrors this notion in the cunning narrative tricks Theroux employs. Once Parker's soul is indeed laid bare to him and us, the descent is a harrowing one, but worth the journey.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.1 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews) 8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Better Map of Inner Landscape Than Outer,
By Nicholas Watters "Nick Watters" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: CHICAGO LOOP (SIGNED). (Hardcover)
I have been transported by Theroux's fiction, especially his Collected Stories and My Other Life. But this book has problems. As an exploration of the anguish of a man trying to face the innate aggression of male sexuality, it sometimes succeeds. But the main character does not cohere, and his psychosis is no excuse for the author's failure. It reads as though the character had been rewritten at least twice, but was never integrated.There are also problems with the setting. It might seem petty and provincial to quibble about details of local color, but Theroux is after all a famous travel writer. The neighborhoods and buildings depicted exist, but the businesses and people he describes would never occupy them. A Polish-American woman says she is from "Milwaukee Avenue," which would be like a New Yorker saying he came from "Third Avenue." Most unforgiveably, she puts ketchup on her sausage. This horrifying lapse makes me wonder whether he visited Chicago at all, or just referred at a map. 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Over the top but highly readable,
By James Manheim - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Chicago Loop (Paperback)
Seeing the highly positive and negative reviews here I have to offer a mixed opinion. This is definitely on the very dark side, and at times it seems so disconnected from reality that you have to ask what the point is. But it's beautifully written, and if you're the type who doesn't ask that fiction be hunky-dory it's quite readable. I took it on vacation, which may seem perverse, but it's a page-turner in its way. It features what may be the kinkiest marriage in the history of literature. The book is a period piece from the late 1980s with effective use of icons of that time such as Robert Mapplethorpe's photography.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark,
By frk040 - Published on Amazon.com
Having read Chicago Loop a few years ago, I felt compelled to offer my 2 cents due to the overly negative reviews posted here. It is a very good book by a great author, dealing with sexual desires and thoughts that some might find disturbing. I get the idea that this is what the author intended, and the hellish ride through the main character's psyche as he descends into the depths of despair and depravity is a hell of a good read.
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