The Deadly Space Between - Hardcover

Duncker, Patricia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060085932 ISBN 13: 9780060085933

Publisher: Ecco Pr, 2002

Synopsis

At the center of The Deadly Space Between is an adolescent boy, Toby Hawk, whose intimate relationship with his mother and her mysterious lover leads to a chilling outcome. A solitary boy in a family of independent, unconventional women, Toby lives in a small, closed world that consists of school and surfing the Internet. His mother, only fifteen years his senior, is a painter on the brink of commercial success. But everything changes when she takes up with Roehm, a fascinating but enigmatic scientist. As he begins his slow dance of courtship and seduction, alienating mother from son, their lives become unstable and duplicitous. But who is Roehm really -- this huge, sinister, irresistible man with no discernible past? The confused adolescent turns to the Web for clues about his mother's hauntingly seductive, predatory lover -- and the answers he finds transform his life.

An eerie psychological ghost story with echoes of Faust, Freud, and Frankenstein, The Deadly Space Between is a disturbing tale of Oedipal passions -- a rich and dark exploration of sexual ambiguity and longing.

About this title

Review

Patricia Duncker's previous books have been cerebral, involved tales (as is indicated by their titles, like Hallucinating Foucault, or Monsieur Shoushana's Lemon Trees). The Deadly Spaces Between, by contrast, is painted with a lusher, warmer emotional palette. The tale is told from a masculine perspective, with conviction and some verve. The narrator is Toby Hawk, the teenage son of a famous female artist. The setting is a "draughty, comfortable, mid-Victorian mass of red brick and white gables", deep in the rainy English provinces. Living alongside Toby and mum are a grandiose lesbian great aunt and her posh lawyer partner Liberty. All very emancipated. Yet, despite the unorthodox nature of this menage, the atmosphere in the house, as Duncker artfully sketches it, is positively bourgeois in its stasis. These people are glib and inert; nothing can disturb their complacent bohemianism. Then Duncker puts some mustard on the novelistic sandwich. A dark stranger comes, "a huge heavy man with a black car". This abrupt intrusion of this animated, brainy scientist, Roehm, throws the "Amazonian triangle" into a tizz, and kicks off a mystery that will take young Toby to London and beyond--to gay bars, opera houses, biology labs, ski runs, as well as the darker recesses of scientific history. The result is at once clever, dry, confusing, elegant, reserved and, just occasionally, exhilarating. --Sean Thomas

Review

Patricia Duncker writes beautifully with a flamboyant immediacy -- Sunday Telegraph

‘A sexy Oedipal page-turner cum eerily effective ghost story' -- Financial Times

‘At her best, Duncker is a mesmerizing stylist.' -- Times Literary Supplement

‘Her work combines intellectual playfulness with the deadly suspense of a thriller' -- Literary Review

‘The Deadly Space Between confirms Patricia Duncker’s reputation as a writer who brilliantly realises ambitious themes' -- Big Issue

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0060085932
• ISBN 13: 9780060085933
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256