- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Anchor; 1 Reprint edition (Feb 9 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0307455335
- ISBN-13: 978-0307455338
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.9 x 20.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 299 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #456,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Amazon Best of the Month, March 2009: Lister's secretive chemical plant fueled Innertown's economy for decades, but since its closure, its legacies are poverty, clusters of rare cancers, and a local wilderness populated with rumors of an unnatural selection of misshapen wildlife. When Mark Wilkinson--the first of several teen-aged boys to disappear every 12-18 in the coming years--is found hanged in the "poison woods" over a bizarre shrine of boughs, glass, and tinsel, the town constable chooses to cover up the atrocity (to the pleasure of Innertown's corrupt string-pullers), leaving the town's long-abandoned youth to take responsibility themselves. The Glister is a strange and affecting book, working as both simmering horror and a Dennis Lehane-style thriller: think The Blair Witch Project meets Mystic River meets It. Burnside's deliberate prose strikes a pitch-perfect balance between the insidious banalities of industrial society and the unacknowledged horrors lurking in the varicose network of cracks in its crumbling foundations, the spaces where institutionalized cowardice and naïve accountability meet to settle the fates of a damaged society's innocents. It's a story that will stay with you long after its last harrowing pages. --Jon Foro
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
“Brilliant. . . . Beautiful and frightening.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Haunting. . . . [A] darkly beautiful meditation on death, guilt and redemption.” —The Los Angeles Times Book Review
“A deeply philosophical tale that goes right to the heart of existence and what one must to do, despite circumstances, to retain humanity.”—St. Petersburg Times
"Burnside builds mood and atmosphere with fearsome skill." —Chicago-Sun Times
"By turns beguiling, sinister, playful and never less than mesmerizing. . . . [The Glister] will haunt you." —Irvine Welsh, Guardian
"A hauntingly mysterious . . . story about disappearances and environmental decay." —Toronto Star
"Like a later day Jekyll and Hyde, Burnside can turn from luminous verse to prose that keeps you up at night. The Glister is such a novel." —The Financial Times
“Haunting. . . . [A] darkly beautiful meditation on death, guilt and redemption.” —The Los Angeles Times Book Review
“A deeply philosophical tale that goes right to the heart of existence and what one must to do, despite circumstances, to retain humanity.”—St. Petersburg Times
"Burnside builds mood and atmosphere with fearsome skill." —Chicago-Sun Times
"By turns beguiling, sinister, playful and never less than mesmerizing. . . . [The Glister] will haunt you." —Irvine Welsh, Guardian
"A hauntingly mysterious . . . story about disappearances and environmental decay." —Toronto Star
"Like a later day Jekyll and Hyde, Burnside can turn from luminous verse to prose that keeps you up at night. The Glister is such a novel." —The Financial Times
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Wierd Ending,
By
This review is from: The Glister: A Novel (Hardcover)
Innertown, located somewhere on the coast of Britain, has been more like a ghost town since the chemical plant closed down years ago. Since them most people who worked there have either died or are very sick with undetermined illnesses. The plant and the surrounding acres have been shut down and closed off, left to the elements and time. Of course kids being kids, there are some who still like to hang out and wander around the old plant. This is the setting for a sudden disappearance of a local boy, there one minute, gone the next. Now over the years, every so often a boy will disappear, one this year, then one two years later, then one the next year and so on. The local police find no traces, the boys are just old enough, and family circumstances just bad enough for them to say this is a dead end town for these kids, they've had enough, they've packed up and gone off to face the world on their own. Some believe that line, others don't.Each chapter of the book is narrated by a different voice and thus the story is told from many points of view. Some characters only share their view occasionally while others, such as the main character, a local boy called Leonard, come to the front more often. From reading the blurbs and book summary I had presumed this would be a horror story but it is no ordinary horror book, instead I found it much more like what I would call a crime thriller. I found it very engrossing and read the book within a 24 hour period always coming back to it after having had to put it down for some reason or other. A page turner with wonderful characterization especially considering the short number of pages. I was really caught up in the story and found some of the scenes as the case started to unravel quite unnerving. My problem is with the ending, well with the last page exactly. As I was reading along and the case had been solved to the reader's satisfaction, I came to the last page and came upon a scene which made me exclaim a great big "HUH???" I have no idea why it ended the way it did or what it's supposed to mean. Remove that last page and I would have enjoyed the book for a higher rating but the ending left me so confuddled, I'm at a loss to say how I feel about the rest of the book now. Read the book and you'll enjoy a good thriller but do yourself a favour and skip the last page or maybe come back to it and read it a week later.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.2 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews) 26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lyrical Terror,
By Sara - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Glister: A Novel (Hardcover)
John Burnside's The Glister opens in a modern day ghost town. The chemical plant that once fused the city with life and prosperity has been closed and left to rot. Everything in the town can be described as dead and deformed. The town's adults are apathetic, depressed and diseased. The children are violent, promiscuous, and haunted. But no one ever leaves the town, unless of course, they disappear.This book is not a typical horror or mystery novel. It's more of a very long dark fable complete with an abstract ending and an obscure moral. This is not an easy read; it can best be described as uncomfortable and difficult. Burnside manages to infuse every aspect of his tales with menace, down to the last comma. There is sex, violence and adult language--the majority of it committed by young adults. It's also the kind of book that may torment it's readers for months. If there is a more terrifying or disturbing novel out there, I have yet to read it. I'd warn anyone considering the novel that it is scary and edgy. You may not like it, but you should definitely read it. 16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great character studies, Terrible plot,
By B. Calhoun - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Glister: A Novel (Hardcover)
Much like previous reviewers, I found the premise of this novel intriguing. Disappearing children, mutated animals, a crooked run-down town's cover-up. Reading the book flap makes this novel out to be a dark, twisted tale. In the traditional sense, this is not the case. The story portrayed on the book flap never really occurs. The flap jacket paints a story of a group of kids on a quest for answers to the dark town secret. In reality, this entire premise consists of one major scene that involves a stereotypical, unoriginal belief one kid has formulated.When looked at as a character study, this book is a winner. The characters are well fleshed out and Burnside does a fine job of getting the reader to fall quickly into the stories of these characters. The writing that accompanies these characters is superb. As others have stated, the entire book is taut with a dark, lingering air of horror throughout the book. That is why the last 30 pages are such a major disappointment. The climax and ultimate unveiling of the mystery is thin, lazy, and rushed. Ultimately Burnside should have put these characters in a setting he could handle or wrap up this premise with a decent ending. I feel cheated after taking the time to read this book, albeit slim, only to come up with a pathetic ending. 11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
It Shines but not Shimmers,
By Cheryl Koch - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Glister: A Novel (Hardcover)
The town and the people of Innertown have never been the same since George Lister's chemical plant shut down, especially the woods. There is something evil in the woods. Every year a boy or two disappears, never to be seen or heard from again. The police won't do anything about the disappearances as there is no sign of foul play. There are a few people who believe otherwise and they are town policeman, John Morrison in addition to Leonard and his friends. It seems that Morrison knows there is evil hiding in the woods but he just like the rest of the authorities will not do anything about it. So it is up to Leonard and his friends to fight the darkness, before it claims the rest of them.Having never read any of author, John Burnside's other previous works to go off of what type of author Mr. Burnside is; I thought The Glister was a hauntingly dark and gruesome piece of work. That is a good thing. It drew the reader in and enveloped them in Evil. I couldn't stop reading. The Glister is like riding a horrifying roller-coaster ride that you can't get abandon till the end, so all you have left to do is just hold on tight and enjoy the ride. I like that horror fans as well as anyone looking for a good scary will enjoy The Glister. This is one book you will want to get your hands on as soon as possible. You won't regret it. |
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