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What the Shadow Told Me
What happens when America's greatest author dies before delivering the long-awaited sequel to the greatest novel of the 20th century? His young editor is left racing to find the missing manuscript before a rogue's gallery of opportunists can exploit it for their own devious purposes. That's the premise of Kurtis Davidson's hilarious new novel, What the Shadow Told Me. This engaging look into the world of publishing and literature is intriguingly suspenseful, outrageously humorous, and universally accessible.
301 pages
First published April 27, 2005
5 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 30, 2008
A "guerilla" promo card tucked in a book I bought at a chain book retailer suggested I go to the authors' web page and enter a contest to get a free copy. Lots of people had done the same and the verbal exchanges between readers and authors was fun. I succeeded and got the book, wondering in the meantime if it would be any good, notwithstanding that the authors had won an award for the book. The book was fun and well worth the read. I haven't seen it on book store shelves, but see if you can locate a copy some how.
September 10, 2007
Intelligent, inane, immensely creative and with Borgesian twists. Who could ask for more?
July 27, 2007
WHAT THE SHADOW TOLD ME made the top twenty best-selling novels of 2005. Parts of this satirical novel deserve to make the top five in any year, while other parts shouldn't have made the list at all, so on balance it looks like the vox populi got it about right.
The premise of this satire is that a Ralph Ellison-like character, who wrote a great novel early in his career and never wrote his much-expected second novel, dies suddenly leaving a cast of variously unlikeable characters to try and make their own hopes and dreams come true by capitalising on the public's pent-up demand for the novel that was never published.
At times I thought of Donald Westlake, Gilbert Sorrentino, Robert Coover, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and Thomas Berger, esp. in the first half of the novel.
The premise of this satire is that a Ralph Ellison-like character, who wrote a great novel early in his career and never wrote his much-expected second novel, dies suddenly leaving a cast of variously unlikeable characters to try and make their own hopes and dreams come true by capitalising on the public's pent-up demand for the novel that was never published.
At times I thought of Donald Westlake, Gilbert Sorrentino, Robert Coover, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and Thomas Berger, esp. in the first half of the novel.
September 8, 2007
I read it too long ago to give a detailed review - but I remember being highly entertained, laughing quite a lot and really enjoying the characters.
February 10, 2013
Even better the second time around!
September 28, 2007
If you don't give your own book five stars, who will?
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews