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Title: Father of Lies: A Novel by Brian Evenson ISBN: 1-56858-116-5 Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows Pub. Date: October, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: AN OUTSTANDING LOOK AT THE METHODS & MIND OF A PREDATOR
Comment: This is a well-written, gripping story, focusing on the worst kind of sexual predator -- a pedophile who is a church official. His office -- and its accompanying mantle of trust -- makes him more effective than most of these monsters. It also makes the damage he does even harder for its victims to overcome.
Evenson's writing is concise, giving us a clear, hard look at this man and his methods. He is protraying only one man, of course -- and there are as many 'reasons' for the sort of behavior he perpetrates as there are perpetrators -- but many of the 'classic' actions are here. While on the one hand he seems to be 'out of control', hallucinating voices and seeing (and following the instructions of) multiple personalities within himself, we can also clearly see him meticulously manipulating his victims -- there is definite premeditation in his acts.
The attempt by the church to cover up the scandal as it comes more and more into the light is completely dispicable -- and, in light of recent events in the news, very topical. At first, the man's superiors place their faith in his assurances that he is innocent of any wrongdoing. When it becomes clearer and clearer that he has been lying to them, they are righteously shocked and outraged that he has deceived them -- but they made no real investigation into the allegations when they first arose.
This is not a happy novel -- but then neither are the lives of indiciduals who have suffered the 'attentions' of predators such as the one so vividly drawn here. It is, however, a novel that should be read by any adult who cares about how children are treated, and about protecting them. This is not a book for young, immature readers -- but I would be comforted if my 16 year-old read it (she's mature and intelligent).
Brian Evenson has done a great service in writing this novel -- its message is one that too many people brush aside, thinking, 'That kind of stuff never happens to anyone I know'. Statistics, sadly, show that they're wrong.
Rating: 3
Summary: Ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem
Comment: My experience of this novel was more than colored by the fact that I paid close attention to Evenson's professorial career in the immediate wake of the publication of his fine and controversial collection of short stories, "Altmann's Tongue" (for which he was practically hounded into leaving the university at which he was then teaching). "Father of Lies" is, among other things, a pretty clear and pretty ad hominem attack on certain members of the administration at a certain private and religious university in Utah, and I think that the novel pulls up a bit short due to its unbridled bitterness (even if it's fun to match psychotic characters with their real-life near-namesakes, as one might do when reading, say, "Primary Colors" by Anonymous). Some reviewers have admired the anger evident in the prose; I think it whittled characters down to fewer dimensions than are needed in what sets out to be a critique of the abuse of power in religious communities.
"Father of Lies" is really well-plotted and I was unable to put it down once I started reading. Despite the reservations I mentioned above, it really is an engrossing read; the tension builds nicely and climaxes well, if a bit brutally (but we expect no less from an author unafraid of disturbing his audience, in the tradition of Kafka). My biggest worry is that certain aspects of the novel make it difficult to accept as a functional critique in the manner that Evenson's foreward implies. Doesn't the criminal protagonist's explicit emotional disturbance and psychological imbalance provide him with a reason, if not a full excuse, for behaving as abominably as he does? I would have bought the critique of Fochs' actions more wholeheartedly were he depicted as having a choice or any authority at all over them. His madness decides, though, and not he.
If details like this don't bother you, though, you're in for a harrowing and exciting read. But if you really want to discover Evenson at his finest, buy "Altmann's Tongue" or "Contagion" (which has his O. Henry-winner "The Brothers" in it).
Rating: 4
Summary: this predated AMERICAN BEAUTY by over a year
Comment: The dark underbelly of modern life. Evenson takes 3 seperate tales: a therapist and his patient unearth repressed memories to reconnect a broken woman with her crumbling world, a minister struggles with waning faith and oppressive church hierchy, and a young boy tends and observes an antfarm as the glass walls symbolically crack and crumble. I'm not sure that I understood it all, and 30 pages from the end I couldn't see how it could all be tied together-- but Evenson pulled it off, weaving the 3 strands into one powerful, disturbing braid!
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Title: Altmann's Tongue: Stories and a Novella by Brian Evenson, Alphonso Lingis ISBN: 0803267444 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Contagion and Other Stories by Brian Evenson ISBN: 1877655341 Publisher: Wordcraft of Oregon Pub. Date: 15 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Wavering Knife : Stories by Brian Evenson ISBN: 1573661139 Publisher: FC2 Pub. Date: 15 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Dark Property: An Affliction by Brian Evenson ISBN: 0971248524 Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Din of Celestial Birds by Brian Evenson, David Memmott ISBN: 1877655244 Publisher: Wordcraft of Oregon Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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