The Blinds A Novel Adam Sternbergh Books
Download As PDF : The Blinds A Novel Adam Sternbergh Books
BOLO Top Read of 2017
PopSugar Best Book of 2017
From the Edgar Award-nominated author of Shovel Ready, a blistering new thriller that Dennis Lehane calls “propulsive and meaningful”
For fans of Cormac McCarthy, Jim Thompson, the Coen Brothers, and Lost
Imagine a place populated by criminals—people plucked from their lives, with their memories altered, who’ve been granted new identities and a second chance. Welcome to The Blinds, a dusty town in rural Texas populated by misfits who don’t know if they’ve perpetrated a crime or just witnessed one. What’s clear to them is that if they leave, they will end up dead.
For eight years, Sheriff Calvin Cooper has kept an uneasy peace—but after a suicide and a murder in quick succession, the town’s residents revolt. Cooper has his own secrets to protect, so when his new deputy starts digging, he needs to keep one step ahead of her—and the mysterious outsiders who threaten to tear the whole place down. The more he learns, the more the hard truth is revealed The Blinds is no sleepy hideaway. It’s simmering with violence and deception, aching heartbreak and dark betrayals.
The Blinds A Novel Adam Sternbergh Books
WESTERN SUSPENSEAdam Sternbergh
The Blinds: A Novel
Ecco
Hardcover, 978-0-0626-6134-0, (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on audio CD), 400 pgs., $26.99
August 1, 2017
1. NO VISITORS
2. NO CONTACT
3. NO RETURN
Those are the rules in Caesura (rhymes with “Tempura”), Texas (aka The Blinds), population forty-eight, located somewhere outside Amarillo, enclosed by a fourteen-foot fence. A twist on the United States Federal Witness Protection Program (WITSEC), the population of Caesura are criminals (some are a “coiled trap,” others are “more like a malfunctioning valve, a faulty weld, a crack in a storage tank leaking toxins”). But they don’t know that. A shadowy organization called the Fell Institute has perfected a method to wipe our memories, and made a deal with the U.S. Marshals to conduct a cruel neurological and psychological experiment. All has been peaceful in Caesura for eight years, but now there are two bodies, both shot to death.
The Blinds: A Novel is the latest from Edgar-nominated author Adam Sternbergh. This novel is an original fusion of mystery, comedy, procedural, suspense, and western, seasoned with a bit of science fiction — The Sopranos meets The Andy Griffith Show meets The Twilight Zone.
Sternbergh has a lot of fun naming his characters: Each new citizen of Caesura is required to choose a new name using two lists; one list is the names of movie stars, the other is names of United States vice presidents. The result is characters named Spiro Mitchum and Doris Agnew, which had me giggling regularly.
These characters are numerous and diverse, but because of the lack of backstories due to the memory wipes, they can’t be complex, making identifying with them and caring about them challenging. There are a few exceptions. Sheriff Calvin Cooper, our anti-hero who’s never had to load his sidearm until now, is given to rambling interior monologues. Sidney Dawes is Cooper’s new deputy. She’s officious, ambitious, and insubordinate. Fran Adams, former love interest of Cooper, is the only resident with a child, eight-year-old Isaac, born in Caesura. Fran’s only memento of her previous life, other than Isaac, is a tattoo of a series of numbers encircling her wrist.
The Blinds takes place over five days, but Sternbergh takes too long building to the action, and when the action begins the unrelenting violence becomes tedious. But the plot is intricate and creative, the foreshadowing is hair-raising, the twists whiplash-inducing. And you have to appreciate a plot that employs Susan Sontag essays as a major clue.
Sternbergh can turn a phrase. During a town meeting, the “crowd pulsates in the heat, murmuring, fluid and combustible.” In the bar, “a defeated ceiling fan begins its exhausted rotation.” When the climactic action begins, “The silences after the shots are the worst part. Then more shots, sharp reports, getting closer,” a resident thinks, “Like the knock of a census-taker, stopping at every door on the block, approaching yours.” Channeling Davy Crockett, Cooper says, “Let me stress that, despite the perimeter fence and the various rules, your residency here is not a punishment. You are not in jail. You are not in hell. You are in Texas.”
The Blinds is about community, retribution (“a distant relative of justice”), the possibility of redemption, and the role memory plays in identity. There’s more than meets the eye to The Blinds.
Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: The Blinds: A Novel (9780062661340): Adam Sternbergh: Books,Adam Sternbergh,The Blinds: A Novel,Ecco,0062661345,Action & Adventure,Thrillers - Suspense,Westerns,Criminals,Criminals;Fiction.,Detective and mystery fiction,FICTION;Action & Adventure.,Sheriffs,Texas,Texas;Fiction.,Thrillers (Fiction),Western fiction,AMERICAN MYSTERY & SUSPENSE FICTION,AMERICAN WESTERN FICTION,FICTION Action & Adventure,FICTION Thrillers Suspense,FICTION Westerns,Fiction,Fiction-Suspense,FictionAction & Adventure,GENERAL,General Adult,MysterySuspense,United States
The Blinds A Novel Adam Sternbergh Books Reviews
A creative spin on a Western. A town in the middle of nowhere, populated by people with murky pasts, a sheriff with little real authority, and a big, drawn-out showdown. Some it this was a little bit slow, and some of the plotting defied logic, but I give the author kudos for the creative concept. The prose is very cinematic, and it would translate quite well to the screen ( movie or TV).
I'll refrain from getting deep and philosophical here, and just say that this book, this very human, almost odd little story that you really can't put a label on, is fantastic!
Just...read it.
{ I will say, I'd love to revisit The Blinds. See what everyone is up to five or ten years down the road. It would translate to film or television quite well. }
I really liked this book a lot. There are often times when a book or a movie has a terrific premise, but the execution or the elaboration of the concept is not done well. This is not one of those books...However, I was not able to give it five stars because I did not like the ending...I felt it was too rushed and not as well drawn out as the rest of the book.
The experiment is to find out what will happen if murders have their memory erased and then are allowed to live in an isolated town compund. The so-called sheriff is a complex character with his own checkered past who falls in love with the only mother with child in the town. After eight years with people arriving every so often, there is an apparent suicide. Then two murders. This book is very well researched and written. I hope you do enjoy! I did.
What if the people in the witness protection program move to one town? In order to live here, part of the deal is to have their memories completely washed as to who they were. Now these low life's are nice neighbors. All their needs are taken care of, no money is ever exchanged for goods and services. Sounds more like a nirvana than it does a penal institution. In actuality, it becomes a puppet show made up of human guinea pigs. One day, the puppetmaster becomes bored and greedy. Nirvana turns into hell.
Remembering the past can be painful for some and impossible for others. For those in the Blinds, their pasts have been wiped clean including their memories of those pasts. But can they live with their futures knowing that someone purposely altered their memories? And what possible gain would compel someone to erase others memories? This compelling novel delves into these questions and takes the reader on a thrilling ride with twists and turns that left this reader eagerly turning the pages to find out the answers.
High-concept fodder for the eventual Netflix or Hulu series, but not terribly well-executed nor fun nor interesting. That said, there are worse ways to pass a few nights of reading.
WESTERN SUSPENSE
Adam Sternbergh
The Blinds A Novel
Ecco
Hardcover, 978-0-0626-6134-0, (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on audio CD), 400 pgs., $26.99
August 1, 2017
1. NO VISITORS
2. NO CONTACT
3. NO RETURN
Those are the rules in Caesura (rhymes with “Tempura”), Texas (aka The Blinds), population forty-eight, located somewhere outside Amarillo, enclosed by a fourteen-foot fence. A twist on the United States Federal Witness Protection Program (WITSEC), the population of Caesura are criminals (some are a “coiled trap,” others are “more like a malfunctioning valve, a faulty weld, a crack in a storage tank leaking toxins”). But they don’t know that. A shadowy organization called the Fell Institute has perfected a method to wipe our memories, and made a deal with the U.S. Marshals to conduct a cruel neurological and psychological experiment. All has been peaceful in Caesura for eight years, but now there are two bodies, both shot to death.
The Blinds A Novel is the latest from Edgar-nominated author Adam Sternbergh. This novel is an original fusion of mystery, comedy, procedural, suspense, and western, seasoned with a bit of science fiction — The Sopranos meets The Andy Griffith Show meets The Twilight Zone.
Sternbergh has a lot of fun naming his characters Each new citizen of Caesura is required to choose a new name using two lists; one list is the names of movie stars, the other is names of United States vice presidents. The result is characters named Spiro Mitchum and Doris Agnew, which had me giggling regularly.
These characters are numerous and diverse, but because of the lack of backstories due to the memory wipes, they can’t be complex, making identifying with them and caring about them challenging. There are a few exceptions. Sheriff Calvin Cooper, our anti-hero who’s never had to load his sidearm until now, is given to rambling interior monologues. Sidney Dawes is Cooper’s new deputy. She’s officious, ambitious, and insubordinate. Fran Adams, former love interest of Cooper, is the only resident with a child, eight-year-old Isaac, born in Caesura. Fran’s only memento of her previous life, other than Isaac, is a tattoo of a series of numbers encircling her wrist.
The Blinds takes place over five days, but Sternbergh takes too long building to the action, and when the action begins the unrelenting violence becomes tedious. But the plot is intricate and creative, the foreshadowing is hair-raising, the twists whiplash-inducing. And you have to appreciate a plot that employs Susan Sontag essays as a major clue.
Sternbergh can turn a phrase. During a town meeting, the “crowd pulsates in the heat, murmuring, fluid and combustible.” In the bar, “a defeated ceiling fan begins its exhausted rotation.” When the climactic action begins, “The silences after the shots are the worst part. Then more shots, sharp reports, getting closer,” a resident thinks, “Like the knock of a census-taker, stopping at every door on the block, approaching yours.” Channeling Davy Crockett, Cooper says, “Let me stress that, despite the perimeter fence and the various rules, your residency here is not a punishment. You are not in jail. You are not in hell. You are in Texas.”
The Blinds is about community, retribution (“a distant relative of justice”), the possibility of redemption, and the role memory plays in identity. There’s more than meets the eye to The Blinds.
Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.
0 Response to "[NKV]≡ [PDF] The Blinds A Novel Adam Sternbergh Books"
Post a Comment