The Primitive

by Stephen Amidon

When David Webster, a young Southern writer, injures a mysterious woman in a car accident, he is drawn into an elaborate con game involving a redneck real-estate developer, Wall Street wheeler-dealers, sex, and murder.

Hardcover

First published February 1, 1998

About the author

Stephen Amidon (born 1959, in Chicago) is an American author and film critic. He grew up on the East Coast of the United States of America, including a spell in Columbia, Maryland, which served as the inspiration for his fourth novel The New City. Amidon attended Wake Forest University as a Guy T. Carswell Scholar, majoring in philosophy. He moved to London, UK, in 1987, where he was given his first job as a critic by Auberon Waugh, who invited him to review a novel for The Literary Review. Shortly after this Amidon sold his first work of fiction; the short story "Echolocation" was chosen by Ian Hamilton for inclusion in the Bloomsbury anthology Soho Square II. He was awarded an Arts Council of Great Britain bursary for the short story in 1990. In 1999 he returned to the US. His literary criticism and essays have appeared in many publications in North America and the UK and he has also worked as a film critic for the Financial Times and the Sunday Times. Amidon is the author of a collection of short stories and six novels, the most recent of which, Security, was published by FSG in 2009. His fiction has been published in fifteen countries. The novel Human Capital was chosen by Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post as one of the five best works of fiction of 2004.[6] A film adaptation of Human Capital is currently in preproduction in Italy for director Paolo Virzi. Amidon has written two non-fiction books. The Sublime Engine with his brother Tom, a cardiologist, and Something Like the Gods which is dedicated to his son, Alexander, who plays football for Boston College.

Reviews

[Cazwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent way to reach my reading goal for the year. After taking a pause on another novel that I just wasn’t getting into, I picked this one up and raced through it. Beautifully written and highly enjoyable, The Primitive is a fast-paced tale of love and deception, while also giving readers a glimpse of corporate-raided, 90s America. With memorable characters and just the right balance of humor and mystery, this is one of my favorite books of the year.