Starred Review. At the start of Davidson's powerful debut, the unnamed narrator, a coke-addled pornographer, drives his car off a mountain road in a part of the country that's never specified. During his painful recovery from horrific burns suffered in the crash, the narrator plots to end his life after his release from the hospital. When a schizophrenic fellow patient, Marianne Engel, begins to visit him and describe her memories of their love affair in medieval Germany, the narrator is at first skeptical, but grows less so. Eventually, he abandons his elaborate suicide plan and envisions a life with Engel, a sculptress specializing in gargoyles. Davidson, in addition to making his flawed protagonist fully sympathetic, blends convincing historical detail with deeply felt emotion in both Engel's recollections of her past life with the narrator and her moving accounts of tragic love. Once launched into this intense tale of unconventional romance, few readers will want to put it down.
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--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
“An epic page-turner. Davidson’s writing is so vivid and graphic, it will give you the chills.”
—
People“There is an admirable clarity to his prose, a careful avoidance of the kind of turgid or melodramatic sentences one finds in lesser writers….
The Gargoyle does not disappoint….Sweeping, intergenerational, wholly implausible, unapologetically melodramatic, and absolutely absorbing. While reading it I rolled my eyes more times than I care to remember; it was, at the same time, impossible to put down..”
—
The Globe and Mail
“Following close behind David Wroblewski's
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and Brunonia Barry's
The Lace Reader,
The Gargoyle is another in this summer's extraordinary series of million-dollar debuts from unknown writers that combine elements of mystery and mysticism….I dare you to read this without flinching. It's as engrossing as it is gruesome, the kind of horror you watch with one eye closed.”
—
The Washington Post
“You want to be lost in its pages, immersed in the unfolding tale of the human gargoyle and a flesh and blood wraith. In the final analysis, the real tragedy of this book is that it ends.”
—
New York Daily News
“Mr. Davidson paints an engaging if not scintillating tableau.”
—
The Wall Street Journal“It's wildly romantic, a la Diana Gabaldon, but anchored by a 21st-century sensibility that owes more to Chuck Palahniuk.”
—
Winnipeg Free Press“In the first 4 1/2 pages of
The Gargoyle, it's clear that Davidson can spin an electrifying yarn.”
—
The Vancouver Sun“A wild page-turner and a boldly impudent work that flirts with the trappings of gothic romances, historical novels and fantasies while skirting their clichés and remaining defiantly unique.”
—
Edmonton Sun“Davidson’s debut is storytelling at its finest, featuring a lively assortment of characters and events that combine in a gripping drama that will keep readers’ attention through the very last page. An essential summer book; highly recommended.”
—
Library Journal“[A] deliriously ambitious debut novel.”
—
Kirkus (starred review)
"I was blown away by Andrew Davidson's
The Gargoyle. . . . A hypnotic, horrifying, astonishing novel that manages, against all odds, to be redemptive."
— Sara Gruen, author of
Water for Elephants
“After 44 years of reading anything I could get my hands on, including
Moby Dick, reading Andrew Davidson’s debut novel made me feel as if I were done.
The Gargoyle had it all — all I’d ever wanted or needed from a book….[The] characters are rich and knowing, the imagery breathtaking, the voice and rhythm unfailing.”
—
The Raabe ReviewFrom the Hardcover edition.
