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The Resurrectionists
The solitude of the Upper Michigan Peninsula is Michael Collins’s heart of darkness in this compelling story of the unquiet dead. Frank Cassidy’s parents burned to death almost thirty years ago; now his uncle is dead—shot by a mysterious stranger who lies in a coma in the local hospital. Frank, working menial jobs to support his unfaithful wife and two children, heads north in a series of stolen cars to dispute his cousin’s claim to the family farm. Once there, Frank wants answers, but realizes that what he is searching for—and the promise of the American Dream—is quickly receding from his grasp. Brilliant and unsettling, The Resurrectionists is an ironic yet chilling display of American culture in the seventies and a compassionate novel about a man struggling to overcome the crimes and burdens of his past.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
8 people are currently reading
205 people want to read
About the author
Michael Collins
446 books52 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
(1)Irish Novelist
Michael Collins was born in 1964. He was educated in Belfast, Dublin and Chicago. His short stories have been awarded the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Award in Ireland and the Pushcart Prize in America.
(1)Irish Novelist
Michael Collins was born in 1964. He was educated in Belfast, Dublin and Chicago. His short stories have been awarded the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Award in Ireland and the Pushcart Prize in America.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
July 28, 2010
Reading the first 30 pages of this book reminds me of what great writing is. A complex, human narrator who I'm looking forward to following for the rest of the book.
January 24, 2013
"I couldn't quite get us back without incident for the burial of my father. We ran into a little trouble along the way. It took us two stolen cars along the interstate to get us home."
Another great opening line that gets you hooked into this literary thriller from the start.
The book is narrated by Frank Cassidy, "a scavenger at the edge of existence". He is married to Honey, father to a gifted child and step father to the wonderfully evil 15 year old step son, Robert Lee, you runs down Frank at every single opportunity.
At the heart of the book is a mystery. In his hickville hometown, franks parents are killed when he is five. He is taken in by his uncle, where news of his death comes to Frank when he is in his late thirties, some time in the late 70s. Time periods are always referred to indirectly in this book, with the reader having to compare significant periods of american recent history (moon landings, watergate) with the events in the book.
As an aside, Honeys ex husband is a convicted murderer who is waiting on death row. This casts a shadow of the book and is a constant source of conflict for Frank, as his ex wife and step son come to terms with his approaching execution.
Frank, down on his luck in New York, decides to uproot the family back to his home town in the hope of receiving some sort of inheritence. The remaining family do not want him there, as is explained through several collect calls to his brother/cousin. This part of the book works very well. It plays like a road movie and captures the soulessness of motel lifes.
Arriving at the town, Frank tries to piece togther the current mystery as to how his uncle died (shot, with the apparant killer next to the body - communicating with noone) and the past mystery, from which he has no memory but did get treated for mental instability.
He gets a job as a security guard at the town univerity and slowly we are introduced to a number of lynch-esque cimenatic characters, including one legged encyclopedia sales men, drunken work colleagues on the fiddle and various other inhabitants of small town american life.
The person who we are led to believe killed the uncle tries to kill himself in jail and enters a coma - only able to communicate with Frank through eye blinks. Investigations reveal that this is Chester Green - a man assumed dead at roughly the time of Franks parents death.
Slowly the threads come together and Franks memory returns as he re-enters the house... his father and uncle hatched an insurance scam after his mother fell down the stairs and died whilst carrying Franks sibling. The father disappears and assumes chester green's identity whos body is left in the farmhouse and burnt.
Complex story - but this does not distract from an excellent tale that works on many, many levels.
1st level - the constant black humour - particulary from Robert Lee. Phrases such as "I may have lost my virginity but I still have the box that it came in" and Franks incredulous exclaimanation when he found out that Honey ex husband spent his ill gotton gains on six pairs of snakeskin boots "what is he a fucking centipede" cause laugh out loud moments.
2nd Level - The book is cleverly pitched against recent American history - in similar ways that Johnathan Coe and Tim Lott have done with their books. The mundane, fashions, TV shows and so on, are also capturerd.
3rd Level - There may even be religous parallels here. But I dont know enough about religion to comment on that.
4th Level - Cinematic in feel - you could easily imagine this book being a film and it would work very well.
All in all, a great success - a note this, it is a great source of other material through both booker prize nominees and liztmania. I just need to work my way through all the other books that I have.
Another great opening line that gets you hooked into this literary thriller from the start.
The book is narrated by Frank Cassidy, "a scavenger at the edge of existence". He is married to Honey, father to a gifted child and step father to the wonderfully evil 15 year old step son, Robert Lee, you runs down Frank at every single opportunity.
At the heart of the book is a mystery. In his hickville hometown, franks parents are killed when he is five. He is taken in by his uncle, where news of his death comes to Frank when he is in his late thirties, some time in the late 70s. Time periods are always referred to indirectly in this book, with the reader having to compare significant periods of american recent history (moon landings, watergate) with the events in the book.
As an aside, Honeys ex husband is a convicted murderer who is waiting on death row. This casts a shadow of the book and is a constant source of conflict for Frank, as his ex wife and step son come to terms with his approaching execution.
Frank, down on his luck in New York, decides to uproot the family back to his home town in the hope of receiving some sort of inheritence. The remaining family do not want him there, as is explained through several collect calls to his brother/cousin. This part of the book works very well. It plays like a road movie and captures the soulessness of motel lifes.
Arriving at the town, Frank tries to piece togther the current mystery as to how his uncle died (shot, with the apparant killer next to the body - communicating with noone) and the past mystery, from which he has no memory but did get treated for mental instability.
He gets a job as a security guard at the town univerity and slowly we are introduced to a number of lynch-esque cimenatic characters, including one legged encyclopedia sales men, drunken work colleagues on the fiddle and various other inhabitants of small town american life.
The person who we are led to believe killed the uncle tries to kill himself in jail and enters a coma - only able to communicate with Frank through eye blinks. Investigations reveal that this is Chester Green - a man assumed dead at roughly the time of Franks parents death.
Slowly the threads come together and Franks memory returns as he re-enters the house... his father and uncle hatched an insurance scam after his mother fell down the stairs and died whilst carrying Franks sibling. The father disappears and assumes chester green's identity whos body is left in the farmhouse and burnt.
Complex story - but this does not distract from an excellent tale that works on many, many levels.
1st level - the constant black humour - particulary from Robert Lee. Phrases such as "I may have lost my virginity but I still have the box that it came in" and Franks incredulous exclaimanation when he found out that Honey ex husband spent his ill gotton gains on six pairs of snakeskin boots "what is he a fucking centipede" cause laugh out loud moments.
2nd Level - The book is cleverly pitched against recent American history - in similar ways that Johnathan Coe and Tim Lott have done with their books. The mundane, fashions, TV shows and so on, are also capturerd.
3rd Level - There may even be religous parallels here. But I dont know enough about religion to comment on that.
4th Level - Cinematic in feel - you could easily imagine this book being a film and it would work very well.
All in all, a great success - a note this, it is a great source of other material through both booker prize nominees and liztmania. I just need to work my way through all the other books that I have.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2010
I found this book in a random little bookstore on a random little island near Seattle. And I'm so glad that I did. Althoug Irish, Collins really has a pitch perfect "American voice" in this book about decisions and desperation. I'm going to quote the venerable Observer here: "Like Raymond Carver, Collins is interested in how lives of quiet desperation are lived."
October 4, 2020
This novel has somehow sat overlooked on my shelves for many years. I bought it after reading the same author's The Keepers of Truth, which I loved, but for reasons best known to me I haven't got round to reading it until now. Big mistake! It is a fantastic novel, one of the best that I have read in 2020. Almost an American Scandi-noir, in that the weather has a leading role - the bitter, deep snow winters of the American mid-West. An intricately plotted story, that proceeds through many twists and turns, with a final plot twist in the last few pages, this novel engaged me completely in the lives (and deaths) of the principal characters. I must make the time to read more by Michael Collins, a real talent.
February 4, 2018
hmmm... I really liked the author but I felt this book read more like a draft version. Defo too much description, we're talking about a book that had a whole paragraph about pouring coffee. The main character is wayyyyyy tooo passive he literally does nothing but pick up the phone. Like I said before I really like the author, but feel he needs to find a better editor.
Ps.... Santa Claus* not sure if Americans know who Father Christmas is... ;-)
Ps.... Santa Claus* not sure if Americans know who Father Christmas is... ;-)
October 16, 2020
Loved this book! Feel I really know Frank and Honey, and what a wonderful mixed up pair! All characters so rounded and meaningful. The narrative is a joy to read and the plot full of surprises. I can normally work out an ending but definitely didn’t see this one coming.
December 16, 2012
"I got out and put on the tire chains, and in the dark of night we moved slowly through sleeping unincorporated towns, like some phantom ghost rattling its fetters. I felt the change come over me, my past life opening up again. For me the subconcious had always been a real place, not just some nondescript darkness but that vegetative Michigan darkness, an inner darkness of shadowy meandering tributaries that led nowhere, a place where men disappeared forever, where there was no history, just a limbo world of things forgotten or half remembered."
"Like everything else in life, there are stories within stories."
Read our review on MostlyFiction.com:
http://mostlyfiction.com/mystery/coll...
"Like everything else in life, there are stories within stories."
Read our review on MostlyFiction.com:
http://mostlyfiction.com/mystery/coll...
October 7, 2009
I love Collins' writing. It's very poetic and knolwedgeable. If you like dramatic literature, the characters and the dialogue are full of dramatic action and things you'd place in a play. I believe they're turning this novel into a scrrenplay, and I can't wait. I want to read more of his work.
March 21, 2011
More lovely observations, but Collins fails to keep the plot twist unsignalled.
September 21, 2016
A bit confusing in characters and plot ; I'd recommend reading The Resurrectionist (singular) instead
March 21, 2025
4.5 stars
"'Avoid reality at all costs (pg. 187).'"
"He existed as some dark, invisible force, like gravity, pulling at me. I remembered back in school hearing about how scientists predicted the presence of Pluto by studying the elliptical irregularity of Neptune's orbit. Mabe that held for my own parents and Ward, and Norman and Martha, and now that image of _____ dead, all just tangential forces on the periphery of my life (pg. 340)."
In The Resurrectionists, Michael Collins presents a story that explores the anxieties of an increasingly alienated society: the sense that, because of the society's approach to a terminal velocity of change, you had been locked out and left behind long ago; the feeling that the television show on the screen in front of you is the realest thing in your life; the concern that you could be capable of (and culpable for) doing a forgotten heinous act, that your exoneration lies in some inaccessible recess of your memory.
Once the family gets to Michigan, the plot unfolds through brute force. Frank Cassidy, our narrator, leads the reader through a visceral experience of darting attention: the reader discovers bitter revelations revealed through psychodramatic visions; the reader endures reactive retreats into the mundane and facile, as Cassidy buries the horrors by focusing on his immediate surroundings. As the plot progresses, Frank sheds this sense that he is locked out of an American Dream by some shadowy force. His uncovering of the past goes hand-in-hand with a dismantling of the grand reality of previous generations. He begins to look at his life uninhibitedly, without the same looming goliath of glory and success of his forebearers, without repressive obfuscation, without a reactive irony. He eventually sees himself as not left behind nor on the defense, but simply in a place he could never frankly look at.
In this book, life is experienced through the pulls on our attention to remote people and stories. As in the quote from pg. 340 above, the realness of those people is known by the impact/force they pose on one's actions and thoughts. To be real is to be perceived: to possess a gravity that demands one to acknowledge, understand, and contemplate. A television screen might possess that realness, just as a person in front of you.
The book seems to assert that there is a purification/vindication in remembering. A purification/vindication that possesses something akin to a religious significance. By reckoning with the past (and our past selves), we involve ourselves in a process of purification, and find some kind of redemption. (Towards the end of the book, when the remembrance is nearly complete, the words "resurrection" and "redemption" arise every couple pages.) However, in that remembering/reckoning, we pose the risk of implicating ourselves. Always. "The need to vanquish history, to hide from our past. It says that maybe we should not give evidence to have ourselves judged against, that the historical moment, and the crimes of which we stand charged, cannot be fully comprehended (pg. 360)," muses Frank. In the next line, the narrator mentions forgiveness for those who choose to obfuscate or forget, positioning himself (i.e. someone who made intentional effort to remember) as a Christ-like figure, with the ability to forgive and redeem himself and others. Full remembrance, closure, forgiveness, and redemption constitute the last phase of a long, uncertain cathartic process, one that empowers us to extend forgiveness and redemption to others. (Something which Dr. Brown impurely pursues, leaving him incomplete and unsuccessful.)
This book is a troubling, thrilling read. The plot takes questionable leaps to make everything wrap up well, but you forgive them as you would the unreliability of Frank. This book earns its keep on account of its singular, incisive narration and worldview.
"'Avoid reality at all costs (pg. 187).'"
"He existed as some dark, invisible force, like gravity, pulling at me. I remembered back in school hearing about how scientists predicted the presence of Pluto by studying the elliptical irregularity of Neptune's orbit. Mabe that held for my own parents and Ward, and Norman and Martha, and now that image of _____ dead, all just tangential forces on the periphery of my life (pg. 340)."
In The Resurrectionists, Michael Collins presents a story that explores the anxieties of an increasingly alienated society: the sense that, because of the society's approach to a terminal velocity of change, you had been locked out and left behind long ago; the feeling that the television show on the screen in front of you is the realest thing in your life; the concern that you could be capable of (and culpable for) doing a forgotten heinous act, that your exoneration lies in some inaccessible recess of your memory.
Once the family gets to Michigan, the plot unfolds through brute force. Frank Cassidy, our narrator, leads the reader through a visceral experience of darting attention: the reader discovers bitter revelations revealed through psychodramatic visions; the reader endures reactive retreats into the mundane and facile, as Cassidy buries the horrors by focusing on his immediate surroundings. As the plot progresses, Frank sheds this sense that he is locked out of an American Dream by some shadowy force. His uncovering of the past goes hand-in-hand with a dismantling of the grand reality of previous generations. He begins to look at his life uninhibitedly, without the same looming goliath of glory and success of his forebearers, without repressive obfuscation, without a reactive irony. He eventually sees himself as not left behind nor on the defense, but simply in a place he could never frankly look at.
In this book, life is experienced through the pulls on our attention to remote people and stories. As in the quote from pg. 340 above, the realness of those people is known by the impact/force they pose on one's actions and thoughts. To be real is to be perceived: to possess a gravity that demands one to acknowledge, understand, and contemplate. A television screen might possess that realness, just as a person in front of you.
The book seems to assert that there is a purification/vindication in remembering. A purification/vindication that possesses something akin to a religious significance. By reckoning with the past (and our past selves), we involve ourselves in a process of purification, and find some kind of redemption. (Towards the end of the book, when the remembrance is nearly complete, the words "resurrection" and "redemption" arise every couple pages.) However, in that remembering/reckoning, we pose the risk of implicating ourselves. Always. "The need to vanquish history, to hide from our past. It says that maybe we should not give evidence to have ourselves judged against, that the historical moment, and the crimes of which we stand charged, cannot be fully comprehended (pg. 360)," muses Frank. In the next line, the narrator mentions forgiveness for those who choose to obfuscate or forget, positioning himself (i.e. someone who made intentional effort to remember) as a Christ-like figure, with the ability to forgive and redeem himself and others. Full remembrance, closure, forgiveness, and redemption constitute the last phase of a long, uncertain cathartic process, one that empowers us to extend forgiveness and redemption to others. (Something which Dr. Brown impurely pursues, leaving him incomplete and unsuccessful.)
This book is a troubling, thrilling read. The plot takes questionable leaps to make everything wrap up well, but you forgive them as you would the unreliability of Frank. This book earns its keep on account of its singular, incisive narration and worldview.
April 18, 2019
Quello che amo della narrativa americana è la capacità di ritrarre la vita vera senza perdersi in tante pippe intellettuali ideologiche (o nel migliore dei casi solipsiche) tanto in voga da noi. Quando poi lo scrittore che si cimenta in tale "affresco" è europeo non è raro che i risutati siano di buon livello (oltre a Collins, altro esempio è Dicker).
Il personaggio principale è un uomo con una infanzia traumatizzata da un accadimento tragico (non è uno spoiler perché lo si scopre nelle prime pagine del libro) che sembra destinato a sprofondare in una vita familiare meno che mediocre. Non troppo distante dalla categoria "white-trash". Un nuovo evento tragico lo riporterà a casa e qui inizierà qualcosa che è allo stesso tempo una discesa negli incubi del passato e una resurrezione, tanto che il lettore comincerà a porsi dubbi sulla veridicità dei suoi ricordi. Il ritorno a casa coincide anche con l'inverno nevoso tipico del nord e la monotonia delle piccole città di provincia un tempo fiorenti centri industriali e oggi assonnate e in bilico anch'esse tra precipizio e rinascita sotto altre vesti. Ambientato alla fine degli anni '70, ha il pregio di catapultarci in un epoca priva del pattume social politicamente corretto e in quello che a tutti gli effetti è stato un limbo tra la crisi politico ed economica delineata dalle presidenze da Nixon a Carter, fino al turning point di Reagan. Ed è per questo che il libro è un ritratto fedele dell'America profonda. Non di chi usa NYc come riferimento ma di chi l'ha girata con Greyhound e Amtrak.
La trama procede senza sbavature e alla fine tutti i fili vengono annodati.
Letto questo cercherò altri libri di Collins.
Il personaggio principale è un uomo con una infanzia traumatizzata da un accadimento tragico (non è uno spoiler perché lo si scopre nelle prime pagine del libro) che sembra destinato a sprofondare in una vita familiare meno che mediocre. Non troppo distante dalla categoria "white-trash". Un nuovo evento tragico lo riporterà a casa e qui inizierà qualcosa che è allo stesso tempo una discesa negli incubi del passato e una resurrezione, tanto che il lettore comincerà a porsi dubbi sulla veridicità dei suoi ricordi. Il ritorno a casa coincide anche con l'inverno nevoso tipico del nord e la monotonia delle piccole città di provincia un tempo fiorenti centri industriali e oggi assonnate e in bilico anch'esse tra precipizio e rinascita sotto altre vesti. Ambientato alla fine degli anni '70, ha il pregio di catapultarci in un epoca priva del pattume social politicamente corretto e in quello che a tutti gli effetti è stato un limbo tra la crisi politico ed economica delineata dalle presidenze da Nixon a Carter, fino al turning point di Reagan. Ed è per questo che il libro è un ritratto fedele dell'America profonda. Non di chi usa NYc come riferimento ma di chi l'ha girata con Greyhound e Amtrak.
La trama procede senza sbavature e alla fine tutti i fili vengono annodati.
Letto questo cercherò altri libri di Collins.
June 29, 2021
It seems to be a good book, but something is wrong with it. The plot is good, the writing is good, the characters are complex, but it just doesn't sound true. May be it's too complex for its own good. The author wrote a thriller with a redneck protagonist, but the pace of the thriller is so slow it's making you sleepy, and the redneck protagonist is full of abstract thoughts typical for a small-time East Cost intellectual.
It's just a book that's trying to be too many things at once and fails at everything.
It's just a book that's trying to be too many things at once and fails at everything.
November 15, 2020
This is not a book you enjoy. The characters are not sympathetic. They're broken by history. They live dead end lives in dead end jobs, eating the most awful food. But they're resilient. They feel as if their efforts are not worthwhile given the breakdown of political and moral authority around Vietnam and Watergate. Strangely the civil rights movement gets hardly a mention. But they persevere, and in the end you're cheering for them.
And you hope their diet will improve.
And you hope their diet will improve.
February 12, 2025
A narrator who is off-putting at first evolves into someone sympathetic, kind of. A mystery drives you through 300 pages of complete befuddlement until, finally, in the last 5 pages, all is explained, but by that point, the simplicity of the explanation is unsatisfying, somehow. I don’t think I hated it, but maybe I did.
February 19, 2021
I read this and Lost Souls so many years ago I almost forgot about them. Found at the library. I do remember enjoying them. 3.5 stars 🌟
November 3, 2023
Interesting story ending fit too nicely and at times the story was confusing.
June 14, 2024
it was quite slow and very obviously written from an insufferable man's perspective
April 26, 2020
I'll give it 3.5 stars.
Entertaining, and maybe a bit too long, this book still had me turning the pages.
Set in Michigan's Upper Peninsular, mostly during a very cold and snowy winter, we meet Frank Cassidy, his wife, son and stepson.
They are somewhat dysfunctional, broke, and leave New Jersey for Michigan when Frank's uncle ( a farmer) has died and Frank hopes to receive some money as an inheritance.
Having lost both parents as a child during a fire, we recount Frank's unsettled, unhappy childhood with his uncle (who took care of him), his troubled adolescence, and years later having decided to re-settle for a while in the town of his youth, he learns a lot more about what REALLY happened during the night of that fire at his parents' farmhouse.
The plot doesn't seem totally believable, but one is gripped throughout the story, and you get a surprise about the identity of the man who was accused of killing Frank's uncle.
The atmosphere of a cold snowy winter is well described, with vivid images of the surrounding country forming in one's mind.
Worthwhile.
Entertaining, and maybe a bit too long, this book still had me turning the pages.
Set in Michigan's Upper Peninsular, mostly during a very cold and snowy winter, we meet Frank Cassidy, his wife, son and stepson.
They are somewhat dysfunctional, broke, and leave New Jersey for Michigan when Frank's uncle ( a farmer) has died and Frank hopes to receive some money as an inheritance.
Having lost both parents as a child during a fire, we recount Frank's unsettled, unhappy childhood with his uncle (who took care of him), his troubled adolescence, and years later having decided to re-settle for a while in the town of his youth, he learns a lot more about what REALLY happened during the night of that fire at his parents' farmhouse.
The plot doesn't seem totally believable, but one is gripped throughout the story, and you get a surprise about the identity of the man who was accused of killing Frank's uncle.
The atmosphere of a cold snowy winter is well described, with vivid images of the surrounding country forming in one's mind.
Worthwhile.
April 5, 2018
I actually read the Dutch translation, but that edition is not on Goodreads.
Alweer een Ier die zijn boeken in Amerika laat spelen. Na John Connolly nu dan Michael Collins. In elk geval staat deze overeenkomst tussen beide heren garant voor topkwaliteit. Er zijn natuurlijk ook verschillen: waar John Connolly een soms haast barokke stijl hanteert, weet Michael Collins zijn verhaal soberder, haast simpel, neer te zetten. Maar zoals ik verloren raakte in het werk van Connolly, zo raakte ik ook verloren in De wederopstandelingen.
Wat mij voornamelijk raakte in dit boek (behalve het verhaal zelf) was de sfeer. De diepe treurigheid en ellende van het ´normale´ Amerikaanse bestaan. De leegheid, het gebrek aan normale emoties… Het begin al direct: op het omslag staat ´Frank en zijn gezin besluiten naar het noorden te rijden om de aanspraken van zijn neef op de erfenis te betwisten en het verleden op te rakelen.´ Klinkt simpel. Je verwacht op de een of andere manier dat die Frank rustig naar huis wandelt en tegen zijn vrouw en kinders zegt: ´Kom, pak in, we stappen in de auto en rijden naar het noorden.´ Nee dus. In de eerste alinea van het boek lezen we al dat Frank geen geld heeft voor de reis, en zelfs auto´s moet stelen om er te komen. Waardoor je dus onmiddellijk aan het denken wordt gezet: waarom heeft die man geen geld? Waarom steelt hij auto´s? Deugt die man wel? Hoe zit dat met zijn gezin? Ook op diezelfde eerste pagina meldt de hoofdpersoon al dat hij heel veel te klagen heeft over zijn vrouw, die getrouwd is geweest met een man die in de dodencel zit. Gezellig gezinnetje, denk je dan. Vergeet echter niet, de gemiddelde Amerikaan leeft echt zo. Men doet maar wat, zonder fatsoenlijke opleiding of baan. Kan je je voorstellen dat een Nederlander zomaar z´n baan opgeeft en bijvoorbeeld naar Italië rijdt en daar op een kamertje gaat wonen? Nee toch? Frank Cassidy doet echter iets dergelijks. En neemt daarbij ook nog z´n vrouw en twee jonge zoons mee. En ze vinden het redelijk normaal!
In De wederopstandelingen wordt ons een heel interessant kijkje gegund in het leven van een paar mensen die welhaast echt lijken, in plaats van figuren in een boek. Helemaal jeuk kreeg ik ervan, om te lezen hoe het Frank vergaat als hij met z´n neef belt, met wie hij nota bene is opgegroeid. Het is niet dat die mensen geen emoties hebben, het is meer dat ze ze op een volkomen verkeerde manier gebruiken.
Eigenlijk kan ik het niet uitleggen, mijn gevoel bij dit boek. Ik kan wel zeggen dat ik het in de spreekwoordelijke enkele adem heb uitgelezen. Ik kan ook zeggen dat het bijzonder interessant was. Spannend? Niet echt. Wel lekker broeierig, en de nieuwsgierigheid naar de afloop is er al snel. En dan vooral het enorme inzicht wat Michael Collins heeft in ´gewone´ mensen. Subliem. Onnodig om te zeggen dat het plot uitstekend in elkaar zit en dat het boek naar behoren een tamelijk verrassende afloop heeft.
Hier en daar vond ik een rafeltje in de vertaling en helaas vind ik het omslag, hoewel stijlvol, wat donkertjes uitgevallen. Ik hoop echter dat dat niemand zal afschrikken het boek aan te schaffen. Ik verheug me nu al op het volgende boek van deze auteur.
Alweer een Ier die zijn boeken in Amerika laat spelen. Na John Connolly nu dan Michael Collins. In elk geval staat deze overeenkomst tussen beide heren garant voor topkwaliteit. Er zijn natuurlijk ook verschillen: waar John Connolly een soms haast barokke stijl hanteert, weet Michael Collins zijn verhaal soberder, haast simpel, neer te zetten. Maar zoals ik verloren raakte in het werk van Connolly, zo raakte ik ook verloren in De wederopstandelingen.
Wat mij voornamelijk raakte in dit boek (behalve het verhaal zelf) was de sfeer. De diepe treurigheid en ellende van het ´normale´ Amerikaanse bestaan. De leegheid, het gebrek aan normale emoties… Het begin al direct: op het omslag staat ´Frank en zijn gezin besluiten naar het noorden te rijden om de aanspraken van zijn neef op de erfenis te betwisten en het verleden op te rakelen.´ Klinkt simpel. Je verwacht op de een of andere manier dat die Frank rustig naar huis wandelt en tegen zijn vrouw en kinders zegt: ´Kom, pak in, we stappen in de auto en rijden naar het noorden.´ Nee dus. In de eerste alinea van het boek lezen we al dat Frank geen geld heeft voor de reis, en zelfs auto´s moet stelen om er te komen. Waardoor je dus onmiddellijk aan het denken wordt gezet: waarom heeft die man geen geld? Waarom steelt hij auto´s? Deugt die man wel? Hoe zit dat met zijn gezin? Ook op diezelfde eerste pagina meldt de hoofdpersoon al dat hij heel veel te klagen heeft over zijn vrouw, die getrouwd is geweest met een man die in de dodencel zit. Gezellig gezinnetje, denk je dan. Vergeet echter niet, de gemiddelde Amerikaan leeft echt zo. Men doet maar wat, zonder fatsoenlijke opleiding of baan. Kan je je voorstellen dat een Nederlander zomaar z´n baan opgeeft en bijvoorbeeld naar Italië rijdt en daar op een kamertje gaat wonen? Nee toch? Frank Cassidy doet echter iets dergelijks. En neemt daarbij ook nog z´n vrouw en twee jonge zoons mee. En ze vinden het redelijk normaal!
In De wederopstandelingen wordt ons een heel interessant kijkje gegund in het leven van een paar mensen die welhaast echt lijken, in plaats van figuren in een boek. Helemaal jeuk kreeg ik ervan, om te lezen hoe het Frank vergaat als hij met z´n neef belt, met wie hij nota bene is opgegroeid. Het is niet dat die mensen geen emoties hebben, het is meer dat ze ze op een volkomen verkeerde manier gebruiken.
Eigenlijk kan ik het niet uitleggen, mijn gevoel bij dit boek. Ik kan wel zeggen dat ik het in de spreekwoordelijke enkele adem heb uitgelezen. Ik kan ook zeggen dat het bijzonder interessant was. Spannend? Niet echt. Wel lekker broeierig, en de nieuwsgierigheid naar de afloop is er al snel. En dan vooral het enorme inzicht wat Michael Collins heeft in ´gewone´ mensen. Subliem. Onnodig om te zeggen dat het plot uitstekend in elkaar zit en dat het boek naar behoren een tamelijk verrassende afloop heeft.
Hier en daar vond ik een rafeltje in de vertaling en helaas vind ik het omslag, hoewel stijlvol, wat donkertjes uitgevallen. Ik hoop echter dat dat niemand zal afschrikken het boek aan te schaffen. Ik verheug me nu al op het volgende boek van deze auteur.
May 23, 2011
What have we here? It seems to be a book about something, but the only memories I have are of very faintly disguised knocks against this wonderful country we live in. The country I mean is America, in case you don’t live in it. Anyway, The Resurrectionists is the only other book I have read by Collins as of May 2011, and despite have a title similar to probably forty other novels, it is worth your time. This is another “menacing mystery,” and another novel about the protagonist seeming to find himself. It also contains one of those glorious moments in novels where it actually explains the title so you don’t have to finish the last page, close the book, look at the cover, and then wonder why the hell it was called that.
The book also contains one of my favorite quotes in fiction. “There was a row of pumpkins in descending order, each carved with the face of an American president, or that’s what it said on this sign, but it was hard to tell one president from the next, except for one that was just a smashed pumpkin, and I guess that was JFK, after he was assassinated. Brilliant and unforgettable and the title is fun to say.
The book also contains one of my favorite quotes in fiction. “There was a row of pumpkins in descending order, each carved with the face of an American president, or that’s what it said on this sign, but it was hard to tell one president from the next, except for one that was just a smashed pumpkin, and I guess that was JFK, after he was assassinated. Brilliant and unforgettable and the title is fun to say.
September 15, 2015
I wasn't sure when I began this that I would stick with it, as I found it a little hard to get into the voice of the main character, but actually, this quickly resolved, which is good, as I found I enjoyed the novel quite a bit (if "enjoy" is quite the right word). The blurb on the back of the book tends to approach it from a very thriller/mystery sort of perspective, and though there's some unravelling of the past -and indeed the present- to do, that's not necessarily the gist, but rather the exploration of Frank's life and choices and his relationships with people. Sounds like many other novels, perhaps (not necessarily a bad thing) but added interest here is created because we can't be at all sure whether to trust Frank as a narrator -and an untrustworthy narrator makes for quite an edgy sort of story.
March 23, 2017
The Resurrectionists is a complex (possibly a little too convoluted at times, I must admit) tale of Frank Cassidy and his dysfunctional family, at the centre of which lies the mystery of his parents’ death. Frank struggles to make sense of his past and come to terms with what’s happened, and the book is both psychologically astute and again a real page-turner. Small town America is here portrayed with all its faults but not without its redeeming features, and the reader is soon drawn into the lives of people who have the odds stacked against them from the start but try to do their best with the cards they have been dealt..
September 22, 2012
Collins tells a suspenseful and rich tale, and tells it well. He doesn't judge, fetishize or even stand at a distance from his characters when they beat their children and terrorize strangers in desperate moments. He is also quite skilled in creating a mood and setting, and I'm not typically one to note such things (unless they are contrived to the point of distraction). One note: The beginning is not very engaging, but it picks up soon after.
July 6, 2014
Read three quarters of this and stopped because none of it rang true. The characters, the story and the voice all constantly seemed to remind me that I was ‘reading a novel’. It felt, too, that the author was constantly trying to impress upon me that he was a good writer, but he was trying far too hard. It's damning that I really don’t care how it ended, and couldn’t wait to start something else.
Yes, I didn't like it.
Yes, I didn't like it.
February 8, 2015
I suppose its telling that in trying to write this review, I had to look online for a summary to remember what it was about. I enjoyed this book as a crime novel but I didn't find that it stuck with me, obviously. And as far as a crime novel goes, it wasn't as much of a page-turner as others, although I don't think it was intended to be that kind of crime novel. I remember this being a fine read but I wouldn't necessarily seek out the author again.
November 21, 2008
Prose is high caliber--lyrical without being overheated--and the premise and characters are conceptually intriguing. But the presentation of the characters and the personal conflicts that are meant to drive the novel are inside out. Everything important that we learn about the character's internal world we get handed directly and immediately. Too much show and not enough tell.
March 11, 2016
Just loved this novel, such a riveting use of dialogue and a fine sense of place. Frank and Honey are part of the working poor, but launch on a road trip in a stolen car to try to gain a part of his uncle's inheritance and to solve two family mysteries. I came to know and love these characters over the 360 pages, a page turner but also a biting commentary on American society and a damn fine read.
August 23, 2008
I can see why this was shortlisted for the Booker. I am not usually a fan of small town America books but this is very well written. Frank's parents die in a house fire when he is five and this is a book about Frank's search for the truth. Worth reading.
November 30, 2015
I can't fault the writing, it's good. The plot is clever, and the characters well realized. But I struggled with this book, not a page turner for me. And by the time I got to the end, I thought it was clever, but I just wasn't that interested any more!
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