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Lost Souls

Lost Souls

by Michael Collins (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2003

    $4.34
Synopsis

LOST SOULS begins with the discovery of the body of a small girl, dressed as an angel, concealed in a pile of autumn leaves. It looks as if the child might have been the victim of a hit and run. It's Halloween. The streets had been full of children. But how did a three-year old come to be hiding there alone in the dark, dressed only in her flimsy costume? And why were the child's feet bare? A ghastly crime, a bungled cover-up, several guilty secrets, innocence defiled, a community isolated, a lowering landscape across which a host of dysfunctional characters stalk, a twisting plot and Michael Collins's uniquely stylish and blackly humorous prose make this latest novel a gripping read. As always the landscape and people are vividly evoked. This novel is full of unforgettable images from its haunting and chillingly beautiful beginning to its brilliant denouement.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 384
 Edition: First Edition
 Publisher: W&N
Published: 01 Sep 2003
ISBN 10: 029764565X
ISBN 13: 9780297645658
Book Overview: THE KEEPERS OF TRUTH shortlisted for Booker Prize 2000 'A style so arrestingly visual it hijacks the reader's concentration; dazzling with the energy and originality of the language' Independent 'A rich and unpredictable talent' Irish Times 'Prose throbbing to the rhythm of Auden's 'Night Mail', but with serrated razor-wire as cutting edge. Unputdownable' Time Out 'One of the most exciting talents to have emerged not only in Ireland but anywhere in recent decades' Susan Hill THE RESURRECTIONISTS All American life is here. Michael Collins has captured its quirks, its daily rhythms, its underlying despair and, most impressively of all, its quiet optimism. In the margins of an exciting story well told, he has illuminated a whole way of life' Sunday Telegraph 'A book that bristles with tension and boasts some of the finest writing of recent years. Brilliant characterisation, an unerring ear for the rhythms and texture of speech, and an unfaltering momentum' Irish Independent

Media Reviews
It is, above all, American in syntax and rhythm and for an outsider like Collins, albeit one who has lived there for a long time, that is a great achievement... His mastery of style, moment and place, gives it a curious vitality which is thoroughly compelling. -- JAY RAYNER OBSERVER On occasion, his writing blends the commonplace and the uncanny in a manner reminiscent of the films of David Lynch. The best thing about Lost Souls, however, is the tortured voice of its narrator. -- STEPHEN AMIDON SUNDAY TIMES The real interest of the book lies... in its dissection of a run-down society... The novel reads like a report from the front line. It is satisfyingly truthful. Its plain bleak matter-of-fact tone is curiously invigorating. One grows weary after all of those fanciful novelist with a talent for playful invention. It's good to come on one who tells you how it is. Collins is such a writer. -- ALLAN MASSIE, THE SCOTSMAN The Limerick-born Collins has been described as the thinking man's John Grisham , but that is less than just. He has a strength and emotional charge that remind you of Patricia Highsmith at her finest. DAILY MAIL What elevates this work beyond the workaday and humdrum thriller is the author's self-conscious knowingness... Collins brilliantly deploys a cold, precise prose in his descriptions of the theatricalities and absurdities of American life... At the moment it would seem that Michael Collins is one of the chief practitioners within this genre and Lost Souls is a good example of its possibilities. IRISH TIMES Collins's reputation as one of the finest chroniclers of American life, seen at its darkest and most decayed, is held up admirably by this fine, chilling offering. SUNDAY BUSINESS POST Michael Collins is far more than a thriller writer... He's an astute chronicler of small-town dead-end lives, an Irish emigre whose commentaries on American mores and movtivations put him on the Booker shortlist for 200. -- MARY FLANAGAN INDEPENDENT An engrossing thriller with a social conscience and a spellbinding portrait of a community under pressure, Lost Souls is as close to perfection as a tale of flaws, foibles and failure can hope to come. IRISH INDEPENDENT Collins, clearly, is keen to create a mood, an atmosphere, a sombre snapshot of a society that has been driven to a dark place by greed and pain. He achieves this, no doubt. THE GUARDIAN Collins has caught the sheer weirdness of small-town America... the story achieves a rich and unexpected pathos. SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Author Bio
Michael Collins was born in Limerick in 1964. He was educated in Ireland and America and currently lives in Seattle.