Word Made Flesh (The Quinsigamond Quintet, 4) - Softcover

O'Connell, Jack

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1901982165 ISBN 13: 9781901982169

Publisher: No Exit Press, 1999

Synopsis

"Vealshank" Tani's life ends in an abandoned train station. The killers don't just torture Tani, they skin him and hang him from a steal beam as a treat for the carrion eaters. This grisly scene wouldn't matter to Gilrein, a cabbie who knows to mind his own business, except that he spent the evening as Tani's chauffeur. Whether he knows anything or not, his life is now a liability to August Kroger, kingpin and rare-book addict - and enemies of Kroger do not live long.

About this title

Review:

"A bloody, Borgesian nightmare, Word Made Flesh exists at the confluence of suspense, of horror, of roman and detective novel, using all of these approaches and more to eviscerate the language and reveal the Wormtown inside each one of us." -- Neil Gaiman, author of Neverwhere

"A chase story, an allegory, and a brilliant riff on language. Jack O'Connell is the future of the dark, literary suspense novel." -- James Ellroy, author of L.A. Confidential

"A triumph of style and content: a world of such dark, repellent beauty, teetering forever on the edge of nightmare - yet shot with rays of curdled sunlight. As its damaged characters slug their way out of the back streets of language a whole new voice is born, the most compelling I've heard in a long time. Assured and utterly satisfying." -- Michael Marshall Smith, author of Spares

"A wildly original novel, part hard-boiled crime novel, part literary thriller, and part postapocalyptic cartoon ... The bizarre milieu, O'Connell's gracefully orotund narrative style, and his mode of explication are the reasons readers should follow ... into the dark night of Quinsigamond." -- Booklist

"One of the most original novels I've read in years. Made up of equal parts hard-boiled detective story, futuristic satire, myth, and metafiction...a heady concoction...Imagine Kafka writing The Maltese Falcon, or Borges or Pynchon one of Raymond Chandler's novels and you only begin to get a sense of what this funny, complex, and thoroughly entertaining novel is about." -- Michael C. White, author of A Brother's Blood

"This dense, allegorical novel rigorously moves through an unfamiliar, labyrinthine dystopia ... Biblical references, imaginative riffs on academic deconstruction and a bleak futuristic vision add a literary flair to this dark tale." -- Publishers Weekly

"Word Made Flesh is a great book, as intelligent as it is thrilling. Jack O'Connell writes with a rare, dark grace. The alluring nocturnal world he draws us into lies smack dab between Chandler's and Kafka's. Word Made Flesh disturbed me and I mean that with the greatest of admiration." -- Michael Ledwidge, author of The Narrowback

"Word Made Flesh made the hair stand up on the back of my mind. Dark, cunning, and wickedly clever, it outsmarts you at just about every turn. Terrific stuff." -- Jonathan Carroll, author of Kissing the Beehive

Synopsis:

In a story reminiscent of a Raymond Chandler novel written instead by Kafka, the main protagonist, Gilrein, wanders the New England town of Quinsigamond looking for clues surrounding the murder of a cab driver.'

About this edition

• Publisher: No Exit Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1901982165
• ISBN 13: 9781901982169
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320