In Wilderness: A Novel, by Diane Thomas
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In Wilderness: A Novel, by Diane Thomas
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For readers of Amanda Coplin and Chris Bohjalian, In Wilderness is a suspenseful and literary love story--a daring and original novel about our fierce need for companionship and our enduring will to survive."Not my usual thing, which makes me say it all the louder: I love, love, love this book--the fearless and unflinching story of two extraordinary, vivid people alone in a vast pristine wilderness, told with genuinesuspense and a wonderfully empowering ending. In Wilderness is altogether spectacular."--Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Personal In the winter of 1966, Katherine Reid moves to an isolated cabin deep in Georgia's Appalachian Mountains. There, with little more than a sleeping bag, a tin plate, and a loaded gun, she plans to spend her time in peaceful solitude. But one day, Katherine realizes the woods are not empty, and she is not alone. Someone else is near, observing her every move. Twenty-year-old Vietnam veteran Danny lives not far from Katherine's cabin, in a once-grand mansion he has dubbed "Gatsby's house." Haunted by war and enclosed by walls of moldering books, he becomes fixated on Katherine. What starts as cautious observation grows to obsession. When these two souls collide, the passion that ignites between them is all-consuming--and increasingly dangerous. Suffused with a stunning sense of character and atmosphere, Diane Thomas's intimate voice creates an unforgettable depiction of the transformative power of love, how we grieve and hope, and the perilous ways in which we heed and test our hearts.Advance praise for In Wilderness "A harrowing exploration of desire and obsession, In Wilderness sends two people into a physical and psychological wilderness that becomes stranger and more terrifying the deeper they go."--Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train "Not my usual thing, which makes me say it all the louder: I love, love, love this book--the fearless and unflinching story of two extraordinary, vivid people alone in a vast pristine wilderness, told with genuine suspense and a wonderfully empowering ending. In Wilderness is altogether spectacular."--Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Personal "Unforgettable: a mad, haunting, dreamlike story of love, obsession, and wildness . . . Diane Thomas mixes elegant prose with raw emotion."--William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob "In Wilderness is an often harrowing story of a love affair between two damaged people, but it is also a paean to the healing powers of nature. Diane Thomas has written an extraordinary novel filled with both darkness and light."--Ron Rash, PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Serena and The Cove "Diane Thomas writes like a woman in a fever dream, clashing two wasted, achingly lonely souls together to create sparks that become an all-consuming wildfire. The desolate inner landscapes of Danny and Katherine stand in stark opposition to the beauty of the natural world Thomas so expertly evokes, and I found myself riveted as they stumbled in their broken way toward connection and their own humanity. Heartbreaking, bold, relentless, and intensely erotic, In Wilderness is the work of a true original."--Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Someone Else's Love Story "The story--the writing--stands out as some of the most original and dynamic work I've ever read. In Wilderness is an intensely powerful cat-and-mouse love story as gorgeous and brutal as its Appalachian mountain setting. I devoured every word."--Carla Buckley, author of The Deepest SecretFrom the Hardcover edition.
In Wilderness: A Novel, by Diane Thomas - Amazon Sales Rank: #159817 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-03-03
- Released on: 2015-03-03
- Format: Kindle eBook
In Wilderness: A Novel, by Diane Thomas Review “A harrowing exploration of desire and obsession, In Wilderness sends two people into a physical and psychological wilderness that becomes stranger and more terrifying the deeper they go.”—Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train “Not my usual thing, which makes me say it all the louder: I love, love, love this book—the fearless and unflinching story of two extraordinary, vivid people alone in a vast pristine wilderness, told with genuine suspense and a wonderfully empowering ending. In Wilderness is altogether spectacular.”—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Personal “[Diane] Thomas writes hauntingly of obsession and survival in this dark, unusual love story. . . . As the author moves her characters through the seasons of 1966, 1967, and 1968, she offers a deep and unforgettable look into how tragedy and madness can shape lives. Written from the points of view of two suffering people, the story takes on an almost surreal, lyrical quality. Riveting and raw.”—Publishers Weekly “Haunting . . . This is both a heartbreaking and hopeful tale that stays with readers long after the last page is read.”—RT Book Reviews “Explosive . . . The tension continues to grow. . . . [Katherine and Danny’s] passionate relationship reveals the human longing for connection. . . . Thomas writes with richness, describing the natural world as viscerally as she does the interior lives of these two intense characters. . . . Recommended for readers who also like the raw, honest writing of Amy Bloom or Amanda Coplin.”—Library Journal “Gripping . . . powered by genuine suspense and driven forward by two characters whose lives readers cannot look away from . . . a memorable story of an isolated, beautiful place and of two people trying to make sense of the world they have chosen to live in.”—Booklist“Unforgettable: a mad, haunting, dreamlike story of love, obsession, and wildness . . . Diane Thomas mixes elegant prose with raw emotion.”—William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob “In Wilderness is an often harrowing story of a love affair between two damaged people, but it is also a paean to the healing powers of nature. Diane Thomas has written an extraordinary novel filled with both darkness and light.”—Ron Rash, PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Serena and The Cove “Diane Thomas writes like a woman in a fever dream, clashing two wasted, achingly lonely souls together to create sparks that become an all-consuming wildfire. The desolate inner landscapes of Danny and Katherine stand in stark opposition to the beauty of the natural world Thomas so expertly evokes, and I found myself riveted as they stumbled in their broken way toward connection and their own humanity. Heartbreaking, bold, relentless, In Wilderness is the work of a true original.”—Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Someone Else’s Love Story “The story—the writing—stands out as some of the most original and dynamic work I’ve ever read. In Wilderness is an intensely powerful cat-and-mouse love story as gorgeous and brutal as its Appalachian mountain setting. I devoured every word.”—Carla Buckley, author of The Deepest Secret“Utterly compelling . . . Thomas brings a Zen-like sensibility to her descriptions of the natural world and to the simple everyday matters of living. The two main characters are delineated with a similar keen precision, and the dark obsession ignited by their inevitable collision builds relentlessly to a breathtaking climax.”—Vicki Lane, author of Under the Skin“Hypnotic . . . One reads and watches the two principal characters moving toward a climax that is impossible to resist—for the characters themselves, or for the reader. This is a story about many things: fate, nature, illness, and the power of healing. The best novels put us under a particular spell. This is a fine novel and the spell is a deep one.”—Joseph Monninger, author of Eternal on the Water “Incantatory, dreamlike, simultaneously harsh and beautiful, In Wilderness is a striking portrait of both physical and psychological healing. In part a return to the garden of Eden, and in part an exploration of our darkest fears, this astonishing novel radiates power from beginning to end.”—Frank Huyler, author of The Laws of Invisible Things and Right of Thirst “Diane Thomas’s In Wilderness is a mesmerizing literary ballet, a dazzling dance of language revealing a story of fear and fragility, madness and passion, and hauntingly performed by two of the most memorable characters to appear in recent American literature. This is a great, great read.”—Terry Kay, author of To Dance with the White Dog and The Book of Marie
About the Author Diane Thomas is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Year the Music Changed. A lifelong resident of Atlanta and the Georgia mountains and part-time resident of the Florida panhandle, she now lives in New Mexico.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1The WomanIn advertising, she has learned, you live and die by the Rule of Three: “Less tar, less nicotine, same great taste.”It’s the same in life: “Third time’s the charm.” The gray-haired gastroenterologist seated across from her behind his cluttered mahogany desk is Dr. Third Opinion, her last hope, who was supposed to sally forth and save the day.But Dr. Third Opinion has not sallied forth, has chosen instead to betray her, to align himself with doctors one and two in his assessment that her pain and suffering come from her body’s failure to assimilate her food. Not to put too fine a point on it, she’s starving; soon her organs will start shutting down; she’s got at most six months.And there you have it: “Three strikes, you’re out.”Assimilate. Good word, that. Significantly more abstract and intellectual than digest, which might far too easily lead to overcontemplation of actual physical functions. She nods to indicate she knows the word’s import, knows the import of all his words. Which she does, her mind’s eye picturing each in a contrasting typeface—Garamond, Bodoni Bold, Helvetica—as if they are a dummy print ad sent her for critiquing. Dying. D. Y. I. N. G. She can get no closer to the thing than metaphor: exiting early from an unproductive meeting in some new office high-rise, into an empty hallway with harsh lighting, where she will wait alone for an elevator that never comes. This is not particularly satisfactory.“What’s its name, this thing that’s killing me?”Names matter. For a while they were her specialty, extracting from thin air the perfect single-word descriptor for a suburban subdivision, line of carpeting, or processed sandwich spread. Before names she specialized in graphic design—logos, illustrations—and married her boss. After names she got promoted to creative director. This doctor, like the other two, tells her he does not know the name of what is killing her. Among all the colleagues, laboratories, scientists, and sorcerers her physicians have consulted, not one has come up with an answer. She is dying of a lack of information.If she opens her mouth to scream now, she will never stop.By her count she’ll make it through Christmas into 1967. Maybe see the trees leaf out, but that’s less certain. Thirty-eight seems young to die. But maybe if you’re ninety-six so does ninety-seven. She has disciplined herself these past four years to give no outward sign. Of anything. Except she can’t quiet her trembling hands.“I see.” She doesn’t, it’s just what one says. Or maybe not; she’s got no idea what one says, she’s never died before.The doctor frowns, delicately clears his throat. “If you’ll forgive me, there’s one question I try to ask all my patients. For my own edification, really, so if you’d rather not . . .”“Oh, no, it’s fine.”Truly, it is. He looks so earnest, the doctor. He seems a kindly man, in his white coat; she hopes his gray hair is premature and that he can look forward to a long career.“Can you recall for me the last day that you felt completely well?” The doctor pauses. “There’s no hurry. Take all the time you need.”All the time she needs would be six decades, although right now she’d be quite satisfied with five. Or four. Yet answering his question needs no time at all. The last day she felt completely well was May 24, 1962, a day she still remembers for an incident of such transcendent beauty she mistook it for a foretaste of all her life to come.With her belly gloriously swollen, she was seated on a red stepstool in the baby’s room, or what would be the baby’s room in two more months, drawing pictures on its robin’s-egg-blue walls. A kite, eyes closed in rapture, rode the blowing wind; a rabbit in a frock coat and monocle had just popped out of his rabbit hole; a library table frowned beneath its load of books. Alice in Wonderland, Tom Sawyer, Little Women, she was lettering their titles when there came a loud commotion from the peaceful residential street—brakes grinding, men shouting, and a strange hissing sound. She flung her brush onto the canvas drop cloth, can still see it there in a faint spatter of black paint, and ran down the hall into their bedroom, hers and Tim’s, to see what was the matter.Outside the open window, a city truck was spraying the runtiest of the ginkgoes in the grassy strip beyond the sidewalk, the tree with all its fan-shaped leaves eaten to filigree. The window framed a tracery of leaves and branches in a pearly mist shot through with rainbows. She remembers thinking she did not deserve to come upon such beauty, that she already had her child inside her, which was far and away beauty enough. Nonetheless, she stayed there, nose pressed against the rigid metal screen, for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, filled with too much gratitude to move. Stayed until the spraying was completed and the truck lumbered off down the street. A small collection of leftover rainbows lingered as drops of consolation on the screen—along with an oily film inside the draperies that, Tim said the next morning, stank like a cheap Florida motel and gave him tropical dreams.When she is finished speaking, the doctor gazes past her with so great a sadness she experiences a moment of confusion, unsure if she has also told him how, only a day or so later, the headaches started and her energetic child quit moving. She never spoke of it, but even that unyielding denial did not save him. Tim couldn’t face it, made believe it never happened, left her to grieve alone. Became first a shadow and then slipped away, under the door or something. Left her controlling interest in the agency, an unwanted guilt offering, began another someplace far away—Milwaukee? Minneapolis?—she never can recall exactly where. Sometime in there her illness got its start and grew without her knowing, like gossip you don’t hear until too late.Dr. Third Opinion sighs. He leans back in his creaky chair, stares past her into some middle distance to her left. “A hundred, hundred-twenty years ago, we used to tell patients like you, patients we had no hope of curing, to go west, move to the country, take the Grand Tour of Europe. Anything. A change of scene. After all this time, we can’t do any better.”“Were they healed? The ones who went away?” Hates her voice’s horrid, hopeful whine.He shrugs. “Who knows? I doubt most of their physicians ever heard from them again.”He writes in his prescription pad, tears out the page. “This is for Valium. Refillable as long as you need it.”She squints at it, can’t read his writing, bets it cuts off in six months.“And don’t hesitate to call me if you need to.”“Thank you, Doctor, that’s most kind.” What good would calling do?After he leaves, she checks her reflection in the mirror by the door. Dull dark hair, hollow eyes, drawn mouth; the glen plaid suit hangs so loose on her now. She regrets not keeping her religion after high school. As things stand, she’s got no idea of what’s wanted, no chips to bargain with, nothing to trade. If she believes in anything, she believes in Sartre: Death is nothingness, silence under a bleak sky.Absence of pain, one hopes. Not much help otherwise.She touches the pearl earrings she put on earlier that morning, her gold watch. She wants to cry and doesn’t dare, for the same reason that she didn’t scream. The sure knowledge she will die descends upon her then, not unlike that earlier mist, and cloaks her in its shimmering protection. From that moment, she becomes a different person, never certain anymore what she will do. What she does first is unremarkable. Drives straight home, gathers all the Valium bottles from her medicine cabinet and dumps their contents out onto her bedside table. She’s not sure why, except they’re pretty there against the dark, polished wood. She pushes them around with an index finger, the five-milligram yellow tablets toward the center, the two-milligram whites into radiating petal-lines around them, the ten-milligram blues stretched out to make a single leaf and stem. Doctors always prescribe Valium for you when they don’t know what else to do. She always dutifully filled her prescriptions, as if each new bottle might include some fresh, heretofore undiscovered healing charm. The pills always only made her feel peculiar, so she never took more than one or two from any of the bottles. Her finished flower is quite large.A daisy. Have a happy day.Slowly, deliberately, she licks the tip end of her finger, picks up a white petal-pill, brings it to her tongue like a communion wafer.“He loves me.”Licks her finger, brings up another petal-pill.“He loves me not.”“He loves me,” from the bright yellow center.From the blue stem, “He loves me not.”“Who loves me? God?”Blue pill. “He loves me not.”Rakes the remaining flower into her left hand, gulps it down with water from a glass on the night table, and—mildly surprised, one rarely knows at the outset where any choice might lead—stretches out on her brass bed to die.Considers pulling up the covers should her feet get cold, decides it won’t be necessary.She has always loved this bed, one of the few items of furniture in the house that she herself picked out and paid for. The rest Tim brought home, leftovers from his redo of the agency. Bauhaus in agencies was trendy not so long ago; now it’s dated. Poor Tim. Some things about him can still make her sad.She raises her head, looks around the familiar room. How long has she been lying here? Shouldn’t she at least be feeling drowsy? Except for a slight swelling, a slight itchy swelling, in the roof of her mouth, nothing has changed. Children are playing in the street, riding in those little pedal cars. Pleasant sound, children’s voices. Girl and boy from two houses down, she’s seen them often. Her own child, had he lived, would be about the boy’s age.What if these children are who find her body?How awful that would be.The itchy swelling in her mouth has spread into her throat, begun to gag her. She runs for the bathroom, heaves up colorful Valium sequins into her bright white toilet.Stands up, rinses her mouth—should have known pills wouldn’t work, she vomits everything—then goes into the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee, brings in the morning paper off the porch. It’s Friday, the paper comes rolled in its want-ad section. She pours her coffee, sits on a stool at the kitchen counter, stares down vacantly at the lines of tiny type. Reads them because they’re what’s in front of her.1961 Corvair, excellent condition, 8,000 miles. She has no use for a second car.Free kittens, 10 weeks old, guaranteed cute and sweet. There’s a phone number. Maybe she should have a kitten; sweet, fuzzy kitten to take her mind off dying.Don’t be stupid. Poor little thing’ll starve beside your corpse.She shakes her head to clear the image.For sale: Splendid forest isolation. Rustic mountain cabin adjacent to national forest and sizable private wilderness preserve. Outbuilding; acreage with meadow, garden spot and pond. Three-hour drive. Nicer to think of than a starving kitten.She sighs, drains the last of her coffee, gets up and takes the otherwise unread paper to the den, drops it atop a stack of newspapers in a copper bin near the fireplace. She needs to get to the office before people start to wonder where she is. Bright, creative people with their whole lives ahead of them—people who, if they knew what she was facing, could not comprehend it.During the two weeks she’s been dying, which is how she’s come to think of them, she’s turned into a master at delegating. It’s what she does best. Doles out pieces of responsibility—one here, one there—until they’re all gone and she can stare out over her uncluttered desk to her office door that’s always closed these days and try to think of nothing. It’s all she has stamina for anymore. She’s begun to feel much weaker, and her everything’s-just-fine charade has grown harder to maintain. She gets to the agency later in the mornings, leaves by early afternoon. Has said she’s “working on a project.” No one asks her what it is. No one asks her anything; the agency evidently runs quite well without her. Amazing how one can attain a status so high he (or she) is of no use at all.At home, as in the office, she mostly spends her waking hours sitting in the den and staring straight ahead. Nights, she’s learned sufficient sleeping pills and Valium will, by God, take her where she wants to go: into oblivion. It’s late November, turning cold. The heat that blows through the floor registers is never enough this year to keep her warm, no matter where she sets the thermostat. Probably something to do with her dying—the next phase of the process has to start somewhere. She’s taken to building evening fires in the den’s stone fireplace. Then she lies on the sofa and tries, or at least pretends to try, to read—that age-old prescription that’s supposed to take one’s mind off things. Thrillers. The only books fast-paced enough to stand a chance at holding her attention. Books filled with characters who die, often violently, which for some perverse reason she finds comforting.Tonight’s a good night; she actually kept down a little food. She twists up several pages from her stack of newspapers to get a good fire going. Used to gather pinecones for this purpose; there are always lots of pinecones in the backyard. Front yard, too—one more thing she and Tim had loved about this house was all the trees. She doesn’t gather pinecones anymore. So much easier to just use newspapers, watch them catch the fatwood, watch the logs begin to burn. Her stack is dwindling. The pages in her hands are weeks old.For sale: Splendid forest isolation. Rustic mountain cabin adjacent to national forest . . . A ring-shaped coffee stain puckers the page. She remembers how it got there and the first time she read the ad. Reads it again. The words, the picture they create, leave something peaceful in her mind. Later, for a while at least, she will think how easily she might have missed seeing the ad, and will feel then, for an instant, as if she is free-falling from some great height.What she does the next day in her office—behind her closed door, at her uncluttered desk—astounds her: She phones the listing agent and asks if the property is still available.She’s buying it as an investment, won’t need to look at it, she tells him. At her insistence the closing comes immediately, the week before Christmas. If she’s lucky, she still has five months—or what portion of that time she can endure.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful. Physical and mental illness, obsessive passion, and the restorative power of nature By B. Case “In Wilderness,” by Diane Thomas, is an emotionally expressive literary novel about the restorative powers of love and wild natural spaces. The book is set in the breathtaking wilds of Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains over a two-year period starting in 1966. The book deals almost exclusively with its two damaged main characters: one is suffering from a seemingly fatal yet unknown physical illness and the other from a crippling mental illness. Chapters alternate between each of their different points of view.Katherine is a 38-year-old former owner of a successful advertising agency in Atlanta. For the past four years, she’s been fighting a losing battle against a serious illness. At the beginning of the book, she’s deteriorated to a sickly skeleton. None of her specialists have any idea what is wrong with her, but it is obvious she’s dying. Her doctors tell her she only has a few months to live, perhaps weeks. Almost on a whim, she buys a primitive cabin in the wilderness, and moves there to spend her last days in isolation and solitude. She thinks: better there than in a hospital. The cabin is a two-mile hike from the nearest road; it has no bathroom or utilities. She must carry in food and supplies, but she doesn’t need much…after all she doesn’t have long to live. If the situation gets too bad, she’s brought a gun to accelerate the process.But as one day follows another in this pristine wilderness, she starts to feel better. The changes are subtle and slow, but appear to exhibit a definite positive trend.Danny is a 20-year-old Vietnam War vet suffering from major mental issues brought on by his war service. Since his military discharged, he’s been living an almost feral existence in the same general area as Katherine…and from the day she arrives, he’s been watching her. For him, this particular wilderness is a special place he’s known from his childhood. He’s there so he can disappear from the world. He’s been there for two years. Nobody knows he’s there. At first, Katherine is an intrusion…but slowly he, too, begins to change.Eventually, an obsessive and passionate love relationship develops between these two. It is a relationship so unusual and powerful, it is nothing short of incendiary. It’s one part “Green Mansions,” one part “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” and eight parts wholly unique.This book held my attention completely for the two days it took me to read it. Each of the main characters fascinated me; I had to find out what would happen to them. The story is slow, meditative, and full of long descriptive passages, but I was still compelled to finish. What I liked best was that the story effectively enveloped me within a whole other realm of existence. Is that not one of the main reasons why we read fiction: to be transported to another world?But think twice if this is a journey you want to make. It is a dark story that is long on descriptions and short on direct scenes of action. It is as much about illness, madness, and obsession, as it is about love, nature, and passion. I vacillated between rating this a three- or a four-star book. I finally settled on the four-star rating because of the author’s skill in sucking me into the story and keeping me there.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful. A taut novel filled with suspense & obsession in the wilderness by 2 individuals whose supposed separate lives collide !!! By G. M. C. What a haunting book-a real taut novel of personalities colliding "In Wilderness". This book surpassed everything I could possibly have thought it was about. Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains provide the setting for two people who separately go to live there on their own, to get away from their original lives. A woman who owns a successful advertising business becomes ill, supposedly terminal. She decides to abandon everything and go away into the wilderness to spend her remaining days of life, in a completely different way than how she has been living. She decides to buy a remote cabin and tract of wilderness land in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains, in 1966 and live off the land, so to speak, eating only sparsely and of good natural foods that she learns to raise. In the process, she starts to change from dying, to a better health! Her land & cabin are 2 miles in from the nearest road, so she must carry in everything she needs. Also, in the land next to her tract, is another tract of land with an old abandoned mansion, in which a Vietnam Vet has escaped to, upon his discharge, where he intends to also live off the land, smoke pot and be left alone with his personal demons, in a feral sense. He discovers her long before she discovers him. He is delighted to have someone to watch & obsess over without disclosure of his presence, which obviously can only last so long. Their lives could not be more different. When she is finally confronted by him, she does something the reader is more than likely not to think of. The author alternates each chapter to the thoughts of the 2 individuals. It took the author Diane Thomas 30 some years to write this novel, which is amazing that it finally made it to publication. And are we ever lucky that it did ! This book constantly surprised me. It is really beautiful in how it is written.. I will read this several more times easily and certainly will never forget it. I will recommend this to my friends. This is a novel to definitely not miss and to be savored ! ! !
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful. Ahh, the writing!... you will feel like you are there By SoCalGlo This takes place in the mid 60's set in the Georgia mountains. This compelling and haunting novel is the story of Katherine and Danny, two broken souls, who form an unlikely yet strange and volatile relationship, fueled by the basic need to connect with another and feel human again.Meet Katherine. Formerly a successful, educated career woman, but life circumstances and ill health have her at deaths door at the age of 38. Her skeletal body fails to assimilate her food. She cannot keep down and process what she eats. Three physicians come up with the same prognosis. She has about 6 months to live. They don't have a name for her illness, and can't help her. She sells her business and buys a remote property out in the wilderness where she intends to stay and live out her final days on earth, thinking she will be all alone there. You can't help but like Katherine from the onset. She is prepared with the necessities to do this.Meet Danny. A Vietnam vet, now suffering from PTSD. His illness had no name at the time either. Also living alone with his inner demons, he has been squatting on land now owned by Katherine. He resents her intrusion when she arrives. In his mind he calls her all kinds of filthy names, his language is crude and that doesn't change much throughout the novel. He does not leave a good first-impression with the reader. As Danny's story progresses however, the reader will feel empathy for him as we learn what brought him to this state he is in, but that takes awhile. He is a complex soul, defined by the atrocities of his war-time experiences. Sometimes you admire his devotion, his desire for achievement and change, especially his desire for forgiveness. Getting to know Danny choked me up a time or two. Sometimes you hate what he is, but most of the time you just feel so sorry for him because you know what brought him to be this person.Very well written, with lyrical qualities that had me engrossed from the onset and throughout the entire novel. Be forewarned the sexual scenes are explicit, for mature readers, so if that bothers you, just know you'll have some skimming to do. In this case, however, it seemed necessary to understand the mindset of the individual, that there was much more going on than just the physicality of it all.It's one of those novels you will think about long after you've closed the cover. Thanks to Amazon for allowing me the privilege to review the ARC of this unique and captivating novel to be released March 3, 2015.
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