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The Five Gates of Hell
'A chilling, fabulous mirror on reality ... An involving and inventive book full of beautiful writing. It has the momentum of a thriller harnessed to the substance of a modern classic'
Scotland on Sunday
'A sophisticated storyteller and portrayer of character, who writes in rhythmic prose enriched with original imagery'
Sunday Times
'Astonishing ... The novel is filled with colourful eccentrics and unworldly happenings, quirky characters and supernatural undercurrents ... Exceptionally well-written'
Times Literary Supplement
'Seethes with originality ... An ingenious, sardonic and seductive roman noir'
New York Times Book Review
Scotland on Sunday
'A sophisticated storyteller and portrayer of character, who writes in rhythmic prose enriched with original imagery'
Sunday Times
'Astonishing ... The novel is filled with colourful eccentrics and unworldly happenings, quirky characters and supernatural undercurrents ... Exceptionally well-written'
Times Literary Supplement
'Seethes with originality ... An ingenious, sardonic and seductive roman noir'
New York Times Book Review
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
20 people are currently reading
857 people want to read
About the author
Rupert Thomson
34 books314 followersRupert Thomson, (born November 5, 1955) is an English writer. He is the author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels and an award-winning memoir. He has lived in many cities around the world, including Athens, Berlin, New York, Sydney, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and Rome. In 2010, after several years in Barcelona, he moved back to London. He has contributed to the Financial Times, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, Granta, and the Independent.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
May 6, 2014
I'm not sure I want to talk about this book.
It was too powerful, too scattered but ultimately chillingly cohesive in that perfect Rupert Thomson way, too intimate, too universal and too mysterious to unpack and lay bare to the dissecting knife.
Some books change you. Some books leave barely a breeze. Every one of Rupert Thomson's books leaves me a different person.
It was too powerful, too scattered but ultimately chillingly cohesive in that perfect Rupert Thomson way, too intimate, too universal and too mysterious to unpack and lay bare to the dissecting knife.
Some books change you. Some books leave barely a breeze. Every one of Rupert Thomson's books leaves me a different person.
February 25, 2015
This is really a 4.5 star book, and it would get five stars if the subject matter wasn't so bleak. The novel is dark, beautiful, violent, imaginative and moving, and I was hooked from start to finish.
Rupert Thomson manages to combine wonderful writing with a plot that keeps the reader turning the page – no mean achievement in itself – and his descriptive passages are so good, and so inventive, that the book is well worth reading for those alone, though it is also worth reading for other reasons: not least for the strength of the characterisation, particularly of Nathan and Jed.
I often find myself skipping forward to avoid long passages of self-consciously clever description in literary novels, as I find they can draw so much attention to the author that they prevent me from fully engaging with the story. It can seem as if the author is so busy shouting, "Look what I can do!" or "Look how much I know!" that this affects my ability to stay within the imaginative world of the book.
It's a different story with Thomson's descriptive passages, both short and long. His similes don't draw attention to themselves by virtue of how "intellectual" they are, or by how much they stand out and thus interrupt the flow of the narrative - rather, they integrate seamlessly with the story and work to make you see and feel the events more fully, as if they were being portrayed in 3-D.
I found that I could pause to marvel at the inventive way that Thomson kept making me nod with recognition, while still allowing me to remain fully-immersed in the alternative universe he had created. In fact, I think his similes aided my sense of immersion, rather than detracting from it. Even the smallest detail is somehow made new and yet instantly recognisable in this wonderful novel.
Rupert Thomson manages to combine wonderful writing with a plot that keeps the reader turning the page – no mean achievement in itself – and his descriptive passages are so good, and so inventive, that the book is well worth reading for those alone, though it is also worth reading for other reasons: not least for the strength of the characterisation, particularly of Nathan and Jed.
I often find myself skipping forward to avoid long passages of self-consciously clever description in literary novels, as I find they can draw so much attention to the author that they prevent me from fully engaging with the story. It can seem as if the author is so busy shouting, "Look what I can do!" or "Look how much I know!" that this affects my ability to stay within the imaginative world of the book.
It's a different story with Thomson's descriptive passages, both short and long. His similes don't draw attention to themselves by virtue of how "intellectual" they are, or by how much they stand out and thus interrupt the flow of the narrative - rather, they integrate seamlessly with the story and work to make you see and feel the events more fully, as if they were being portrayed in 3-D.
I found that I could pause to marvel at the inventive way that Thomson kept making me nod with recognition, while still allowing me to remain fully-immersed in the alternative universe he had created. In fact, I think his similes aided my sense of immersion, rather than detracting from it. Even the smallest detail is somehow made new and yet instantly recognisable in this wonderful novel.
April 18, 2014
Another compelling and literate novel by the extraordinary Rupert Thomson. Every novel I've read by this author is unique and amusingly bizarre! This author definitely has my attention!
December 12, 2013
Rupert Thomson is one of the best English contemporary writers. Read this and find out why.
May 10, 2014
Brilliant..
July 9, 2014
Rupert Thomson is one of those authors whose work I normally get massively frustrated by, as he comes up with a unique, intriguing premise and never manages to quite tie the idea down into a coherent novel. And generally speaking, I do prefer my novels to be coherent. However, in this one, he doesn't really come up with a premise at all. I'm not sure that even the location or characters are that well realised either. This is a book dealing mainly with the bizarre fictional seaside location of Moon Beach, a town where the gangland overlords run funeral parlours, and will do anything to get to the top.
The two main protagonists are Nathan, a fairly middle-class kid with an ill and needy father, and Jed, an ugly, mean spirited and slightly creepy kid from the wrong side of the tracks. It follows both of them in alternate chapters, from being teenage kids with some of the same acquaintances, to the inevitable final meeting. Which makes it seem like there's an inexorable path to a climactic confrontation. But there's not, they aren't rivals, they're not friends, they're both just different characters, following different routes in their own separate stories involving some of the same people. Nathan is the good(ish) guy trying to make his way through life honestly, Jed is the wrong-un, doing anything it will take to get into the inner circle of the bad guys. And they both come up close and personal to the bad guy, the depiction of corrupt, malevolent power that is Neville Creed, the kingpin of funerals (yeah, I still don't get that either).
It's a dreamlike fantasy. None of the characters have a firm base in reality, and don't have a strong vision of who or what they want to be. They pretty much float along in a fugue state, not understanding the world they're in, and not really attempting too, either. But it's such a beautifully written, vague dream of a story, with it's wraithlike characters, not a bit of meat on their bones, in the vaguely described ghost-town of death. It's quite unique, hugely enthralling, and lingers long in the memory, without providing any answers, and I'm not sure there was even a question asked, to be honest. Lovely, darkly ethereal, and odd.
The two main protagonists are Nathan, a fairly middle-class kid with an ill and needy father, and Jed, an ugly, mean spirited and slightly creepy kid from the wrong side of the tracks. It follows both of them in alternate chapters, from being teenage kids with some of the same acquaintances, to the inevitable final meeting. Which makes it seem like there's an inexorable path to a climactic confrontation. But there's not, they aren't rivals, they're not friends, they're both just different characters, following different routes in their own separate stories involving some of the same people. Nathan is the good(ish) guy trying to make his way through life honestly, Jed is the wrong-un, doing anything it will take to get into the inner circle of the bad guys. And they both come up close and personal to the bad guy, the depiction of corrupt, malevolent power that is Neville Creed, the kingpin of funerals (yeah, I still don't get that either).
It's a dreamlike fantasy. None of the characters have a firm base in reality, and don't have a strong vision of who or what they want to be. They pretty much float along in a fugue state, not understanding the world they're in, and not really attempting too, either. But it's such a beautifully written, vague dream of a story, with it's wraithlike characters, not a bit of meat on their bones, in the vaguely described ghost-town of death. It's quite unique, hugely enthralling, and lingers long in the memory, without providing any answers, and I'm not sure there was even a question asked, to be honest. Lovely, darkly ethereal, and odd.
May 16, 2014
I read this book a long time ago. About twenty odd years back, but I do remember its impact. It has a certain odd nightmareish quality to it. If you like deep psychological insights, you are going to love this one.
February 27, 2008
scary, great
October 13, 2011
For me this book continually hovered on the verge of greatness, but never quite crossed over the threshold. It was still very enjoyable, though.
December 19, 2020
Reread this book - first time I read it was in 1992 - and I still find it fantastic, however gloomy the setting is. Do read this book.
January 12, 2021
The Five Gates of Hell - a tale of innocence, betrayal, retaliation and terror - is an unforgettable and unusual book.
The poetry is big and scary - Rupert Thomson's social realism is magical and brutal in this excellent novel, being created to be a cult phenomenon.
The storytelling of two young men, both of them raised in the shadow of violent crime and death in Moon Beach, an American coastal town built on a cynical and corrupt funeral industry, describe with terrifyingly fascinated and detailed depictions in scenes from the backyard of American society.
The poetry is big and scary - Rupert Thomson's social realism is magical and brutal in this excellent novel, being created to be a cult phenomenon.
The storytelling of two young men, both of them raised in the shadow of violent crime and death in Moon Beach, an American coastal town built on a cynical and corrupt funeral industry, describe with terrifyingly fascinated and detailed depictions in scenes from the backyard of American society.
January 17, 2009
In The Five Gates of Hell Thomson creates an entirely creepy city, Moon Beach, an American-style metropolis on the eastern coast of a large, unnamed country, whose chief industry is funerals. Moon Beach sometimes feels like Miami, sometimes like New Orleans, sometimes like Mexico City (complete with an annual Day of the Dead), but it is always mysterious, less a portrait of a real American city than a vivid hallucination of one. In it he tells of the twin, interlinked comings of age of the shabby-genteel Nathan Christie and the petty criminal Jed Morgan; and the complicated plot, as the lives of Nathan and Jed cross and recross, is mainly an excuse to explore this landscape. While the city feels American, many of the characters still feel British, and these disparate elements—noir and gothic, American and British—come together in the character of Neville Creed, who is part funeral magnate and part Cockney crime boss, sort of a cross between Vincent Price and Bob Hoskins. He is also a sexual predator operating under the name of Reid; as Creed he employs and then betrays Jed, and as Reid he drugs and rapes the hapless Nathan while wearing a suit made out of human bones. The novel often reads like a collaboration between Raymond Chandler and a modern gothicist like Clive Barker or Neil Gaiman.
This last paragraph, moving from a gothic metaphor to a cynical Chandleresque second person, is a reminder that noir and gothic are near cousins and share some essential elements: a palpable sense of impending doom, the constant threat of violence and death, and a seething, often perverse sexuality. All of which Thomson improbably wears as comfortably and stylishly as a trench coat and fedora—or a suit of human bones. It is a wild and quirky ride of the imagination -- both dark and unusual.
This last paragraph, moving from a gothic metaphor to a cynical Chandleresque second person, is a reminder that noir and gothic are near cousins and share some essential elements: a palpable sense of impending doom, the constant threat of violence and death, and a seething, often perverse sexuality. All of which Thomson improbably wears as comfortably and stylishly as a trench coat and fedora—or a suit of human bones. It is a wild and quirky ride of the imagination -- both dark and unusual.
November 24, 2015
I read this book when I was very young, too young to understand the nature of not only taking a life but making a person suffer for life. This book opened my eyes to the separation of personality and abnormal behavior. Sometimes nice, well-meaning people are capable of awful things, but we don’t want to think about that, much less imagine it. We never want to find ourselves in such a predicament either. Needless to say, this book left an impression on me, one that I can't quite shake off to this day. I think if I had read this book when I was a few years older, I would’ve been able to appreciate its complexity and darkness more and maybe handle the combination better.
October 4, 2016
" 'Those waves are high, you try and get through, but they're hitting the beach and chewing it up, you dive, you come up, you dive again, you come up again, you're getting nowhere, it's hard water, it keeps knocking you down and pounding on you, but you can't stop, if you stop, you've lost it, it rolls you right back to the shore, it throws you out on the sand like an old tin can, you've got to keep diving, that's where your fitness counts, you dive, you come up, and those waves keep pounding on you, and then, finally, you come to the big one, you get under it, and you're safe, you're on the other side of the water.' "
Moon Beach is promoted by the local tourism industry as a 'beach resort', not what the region actually is, as being the leading players in the commercialization, preparation, and execution in the process of death before and after life. The economy of death is a bountiful business, but not as fertile as it once was in Moon Beach now that more modern ocean burials have overtaken the customary land burials. Like Blockbuster Video in the late 90's there is a funeral parlour seemingly found on every street corner but advancements in medicine and changes to tradition has established these parlours as one of the reluctant bit players in the business of serving stale coffee. Moon Beach is a place where people come to die, where death is celebrated and compromised, yet everybody seems to be waiting for death to knock on their door. For many residents there's this ominous feeling that death is always chasing them but never fully knowing when it will show up. Moon Beach and all of its infamy serves as the backdrop for Rupert Thomson's literary whirlwind The Five Gates Of Hell, but the thirst for all things death is the overriding theme.
Ironically enough, the story begins with a young boy named Nathan dealing with the recent innocuous death of his mother as his younger sister and disabled father stand by his side. To help smooth out the grieving process and better handle the energy that two young children can bring, Nathan is sent to Moon Beach for a few weeks to stay with his mother's sister, his beloved aunt Yvonne. Like Yvonne, Nathan naturally takes to water and feels a deep connection with his aunt, but realizes that as his absence from his sister grows he never wants their collective fondness to waver. As time moves along so slowly, Nathan's dad's condition worsens at a steady pace leaving a foreign live-in caregiver responsible to take some of the load off. Nathan's devotion to his father and sister Georgia can not be denied, but for any young man the world within and beyond Moon Beach with all of its good and evil awaits.
" 'When my mother died, where did she go?,' 'She went into the ocean.' Yvonne took his hand in hers. 'She loved the ocean. It was in her blood, just like it's in yours.' She lit a cheroot and suddenly the world smelled like the inside of a cupboard that hadn't been opened for years. 'When you go back to the ocean,' she said, 'all the bad things you've ever done, they're washed away. You're purified, cleansed, ready for the next life. You know that skull you found?' He nodded. 'Remember how pure and white it was?' He remembered. 'Well that's what the ocean does,' she said. 'Takes out all the dirt, all the stains of having been alive.' "
Jed Morgan is told from an early age that he was a mistake birth, not relegated to being a conversation between mother and father, it was a habitual conversation between mother and son because father skipped town long ago and mom needed someone to vent to. Jed also had a distinct look that made him not only an easy target for his fellow schoolmates, but his whorish and volatile mother as well. Jed felt like he didn't belong to his mother, in truth there was no other feeling then deep shame that he lived with day in and day out. Needless to say Jed doesn't live in a living arrangement that harbors potential, Jed ultimately takes it upon himself to self-entertain and finds it harmlessly in collecting radios. After amassing more than one hundred pieces of equipment his mom Muriel intentionally throws them away with the garbage, breeding a newfound hobby and a hate in Jed that quickly becomes written all over his face that can't be erased. Jed's own personal revenge story and bad looks helps elicit some good feelings with a local group of ruffians, earning him a spot within their tight-knit group. Jed has a presence that makes other people's skin go cold, there's something about his looks, an other imposed-fulfilling prophecy of sorts that makes him a welcomed sight for once in his life. With no accountability for his mother and a group of new friends it seems that Jed has a new beginning in life where loyalty is silence not presumed.
"He rarely left his room. You heard him sometimes - a creak on the stairs, the click of a door - but you never saw him. And there hadn't been a sound from Muriel. It was as if Jed had moved from one dimension to another. His original dimension hadn't reported him missing, and his new dimension didn't acknowledge his presence. Maybe what he'd really done was end up somewhere between the two. Some days he almost felt invisible."
The storytelling is out of this world, entrancing in its prose and lyricism, yet haunting in the author's timely use of brute force. The plotlines has an air of Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer with a devilish touch this book as it is set in an unknown area by the coast, a time that gives the perception of a not so distant future where the clock is seemingly everyone's enemy. Furthermore it seems that the reader is placed within a Lynch film with all of it's eccentricities, inexplicable character reactions, identity crises, a plunge into the supernatural, hallucinogenic and suffocating atmosphere, and dreary environments made complete with conceivably black/blue lit settings. My reaction throughout my reading was one of astonishment but bewilderment as well. Like black or white, for me the author didn't leave much room for traversing the spectrum in the matter of personal feeling or opinion. However; no matter what I think, there is no doubting the originality of this novel, The Five Gates Of Hell was a truly unique experience.
"Now it was three days later, and the bruises were sunset colours: yellow, purple, brown. He'd been beaten like metal, like the edge of a scythe. He was sharp. All doubts, all fears, all hesitation, beaten out of him. He'd left them behind, along with that job in the ice-cream parlour and that rented room with its bright-green walls and it's bedbugs and its carpet tangled with other people's hair and nails. They were outlived, redundant. More dead skin for the carpet, more ghosts for the cemetery."
August 26, 2025
Arrrrr man. I hate writing bad reviews but I’m struggling to find anything positive to write about this book! I read the reviews and I got excited by the blurb, a mysterious seaside town called moon beach where the dead rise once a year. A supernatural thriller one bookworm wrote, verging on the edge of brilliance another….i was sold a dream. What’s the saying? Never judge a book by its…blurb?
So what was the book about? The story followed two teenagers who struggle through life. Nathan who’s dad is suffering with illness and Jed who’s mother is a drunk who sleeps around. They both stumble through life and their stories collide in the very end of this story.
But it was me who really stumbled to get through this. The characters were really bland for main characters. The stories behind them were also boring, Jed ends us being a driver for a gay gangster and there was endless descriptions of the young chauffeur driving from A to B….honestly it was painful. I couldn’t get to grips with the mood of the book, for some strange reason Jed has a relationship with a girl and loves having sex with her when she’s on her period…why? It’s not that type of book.
You could read the first line of a paragraph and knew straight away you could skip through it because it wasn’t going to be important, there was soooo many paragraphs were you could just scan, just boring pointless description.
Honestly when this book was drafted I can’t believe publishers would say “yes let’s get this on the shelves”, if this can be the standard, I know I can write a better story than this, that’s for sure. Obviously my use of English language wouldn’t be as good as a professional author but story making and character development I know I can do better, I’ve got better…it’s just finding time.
I would never talk someone out of buying a book and putting on their shelf because a rubbish book to me can be someone else best book ever. But this just wasn’t for me. It was tagged by goodreads as a thriller…others tagged it as supernatural…it was definitely neither.
Good look if you’re going to give this a go….but The Five Gates Of Hell, set in a town dominated by a funeral parlour business…..in my opinion…needs burying.
*MY RATING FOR THIS BOOK IS 6.0/10.0
November 4, 2017
Hmmm. So this was a book club read, about the life and upbringing of two boys in Moon Beach --
a fictional town which celebrates death, and makes a living from death. Nathan has a fairly stable middle-class childhood, whereas Jed is consistently treated like the trash under your shoe,
but they both struggle to figure themselves out and where they belong, their lives also intersecting with the criminal element of the town with disastrous consequences.
YAY:
• The setting! Moon Beach in the blurb is sold as sorta magical realism, in a dreamy, surreal location that feels like half-nightmare, half-purgatory: an American resort town (state unclear, but perhaps something like Florida) with neon-lit funeral parlours, a thriving criminal underworld, clubs with names like Necropolis, an eclectic Day of the Dead celebration every year, floating cemeteries, blue cakes baked with sea salt, the ocean seething everywhere and seeping its way into everyone's lives.
• Nathan's chapters. There are touching relationships with his father and sister, an early friendship with another lifeguard named Tip, and a confusion over his sexuality that really struck my emotions; there's a melancholy, bittersweet edge to all his family interactions that I adored. He's admittedly blander, a more generic generally well-intentioned kid with less damage, but it was his relationships that kept me riveted and oddly wanting to read more.
• Thomson has the occasional really good sentence, just a clear and concise and brutally effective turn of phrase that I would wind up highlighting.
NAY:
• Underutilisation of aforementioned setting. For most of the novel, Moon Beach just seems like a seedy seaside town with weirdly large funeral parlours, and it really doesn't milk the location enough; it's only about 62% through when you get a better sense of the worldbuilding and how unusual this place really is. I wanted so much more from this.
• Jed's chapters. He's a pitiful piece of garbage who consistently overestimates his own importance and capabilities, so you do feel sorry for him... but he was also so snide and spiteful towards everyone around him that I hated spending time with him. There's a constant thread of revulsion and physical repulsiveness with him too (I swear I was going to vomit if I had to read any more repetitive descriptions of his skin flaking off) that also crimped my enjoyment of his arc. I hardly ever do this, but I wound up skimming his chapters and only reading the first sentence of each paragraph, in order to get through it faster.
• In general, deeply unlikeable characters as far as the eye can see. For me, there was no one apart from Nathan/Georgia to connect to and care about as a reader. (YMMV, however: a lot of people in book club preferred Jed because he's more of an anti-hero.)
• An utter lack of fleshed-out female characters. (I really liked what we saw of Georgia, but she was barely around.) They're all just scenery, decoration in the background for the two boys to gloss on and then move on from -- Jed's romantic interests were especially shallow since they mostly just devolved into monotonous, repetitive, crass sex scenes to highlight his fetishes.
• The two separate storylines took too long to intersect. For the longest time it's like two entirely separate bildungsromans -- Jed and Nathan are two trains running on parallel tracks, reflections and inversions of each other, but without the stories intersecting until the very end, it's so hard for me to care about their arcs. This wasn't even a novel about male friendships or dynamics, really, because both Nathan & Jed operate separately for so long and are such loners.
• Similarly, plot takes too long to get rolling. It felt so aimless and sleepy for about half of the book, and it took about two thirds before I finally got a sense of where things were headed.
• Overly-literary/flowery writing style for my tastes; I found myself skimming paragraphs when they started getting too repetitive and aggravatingly poetic.
• Also soooo much rape, including multiple predatory behaviour towards minors. Yikes!
• An abrupt ending with little idea what the purpose of this whole plot was for. Is it about the allure and danger of criminal underworlds? Is it about the importance of a stable family life to help someone survive and escape a toxic setting? I genuinely don't know.
===
It's not that I recoil from all dark and grotesque plots -- I do like dark and gritty stories with unlikeable male characters, and where terrible things happen -- but this iteration wasn't for me. I wanted more closely-knit relationships between the main characters, I wanted a tighter plot and less flowery prose, I wanted more worldbuilding. I granted an extra star for the interesting setting & for Nathan's family; otherwise, not my cuppa at all, alas.
I'll read more Rupert Thomson tho because I own Death of a Murderer, and a story feat. a policeman with a fraying marriage sounds like it miiiight be more up my alley.
a fictional town which celebrates death, and makes a living from death. Nathan has a fairly stable middle-class childhood, whereas Jed is consistently treated like the trash under your shoe,
but they both struggle to figure themselves out and where they belong, their lives also intersecting with the criminal element of the town with disastrous consequences.
YAY:
• The setting! Moon Beach in the blurb is sold as sorta magical realism, in a dreamy, surreal location that feels like half-nightmare, half-purgatory: an American resort town (state unclear, but perhaps something like Florida) with neon-lit funeral parlours, a thriving criminal underworld, clubs with names like Necropolis, an eclectic Day of the Dead celebration every year, floating cemeteries, blue cakes baked with sea salt, the ocean seething everywhere and seeping its way into everyone's lives.
• Nathan's chapters. There are touching relationships with his father and sister, an early friendship with another lifeguard named Tip, and a confusion over his sexuality that really struck my emotions; there's a melancholy, bittersweet edge to all his family interactions that I adored. He's admittedly blander, a more generic generally well-intentioned kid with less damage, but it was his relationships that kept me riveted and oddly wanting to read more.
• Thomson has the occasional really good sentence, just a clear and concise and brutally effective turn of phrase that I would wind up highlighting.
NAY:
• Underutilisation of aforementioned setting. For most of the novel, Moon Beach just seems like a seedy seaside town with weirdly large funeral parlours, and it really doesn't milk the location enough; it's only about 62% through when you get a better sense of the worldbuilding and how unusual this place really is. I wanted so much more from this.
• Jed's chapters. He's a pitiful piece of garbage who consistently overestimates his own importance and capabilities, so you do feel sorry for him... but he was also so snide and spiteful towards everyone around him that I hated spending time with him. There's a constant thread of revulsion and physical repulsiveness with him too (I swear I was going to vomit if I had to read any more repetitive descriptions of his skin flaking off) that also crimped my enjoyment of his arc. I hardly ever do this, but I wound up skimming his chapters and only reading the first sentence of each paragraph, in order to get through it faster.
• In general, deeply unlikeable characters as far as the eye can see. For me, there was no one apart from Nathan/Georgia to connect to and care about as a reader. (YMMV, however: a lot of people in book club preferred Jed because he's more of an anti-hero.)
• An utter lack of fleshed-out female characters. (I really liked what we saw of Georgia, but she was barely around.) They're all just scenery, decoration in the background for the two boys to gloss on and then move on from -- Jed's romantic interests were especially shallow since they mostly just devolved into monotonous, repetitive, crass sex scenes to highlight his fetishes.
• The two separate storylines took too long to intersect. For the longest time it's like two entirely separate bildungsromans -- Jed and Nathan are two trains running on parallel tracks, reflections and inversions of each other, but without the stories intersecting until the very end, it's so hard for me to care about their arcs. This wasn't even a novel about male friendships or dynamics, really, because both Nathan & Jed operate separately for so long and are such loners.
• Similarly, plot takes too long to get rolling. It felt so aimless and sleepy for about half of the book, and it took about two thirds before I finally got a sense of where things were headed.
• Overly-literary/flowery writing style for my tastes; I found myself skimming paragraphs when they started getting too repetitive and aggravatingly poetic.
• Also soooo much rape, including multiple predatory behaviour towards minors. Yikes!
• An abrupt ending with little idea what the purpose of this whole plot was for. Is it about the allure and danger of criminal underworlds? Is it about the importance of a stable family life to help someone survive and escape a toxic setting? I genuinely don't know.
===
It's not that I recoil from all dark and grotesque plots -- I do like dark and gritty stories with unlikeable male characters, and where terrible things happen -- but this iteration wasn't for me. I wanted more closely-knit relationships between the main characters, I wanted a tighter plot and less flowery prose, I wanted more worldbuilding. I granted an extra star for the interesting setting & for Nathan's family; otherwise, not my cuppa at all, alas.
I'll read more Rupert Thomson tho because I own Death of a Murderer, and a story feat. a policeman with a fraying marriage sounds like it miiiight be more up my alley.
December 22, 2021
This is me completing Rupert Thomson's output, 14th of his 14 books so far, the hardest one to get hold of, and I have the same stunned feeling as when I read The Insult way back in 2004: this is different, this is new, this takes me inside the words in a way I haven't experienced before -- particularly his use of simile and metaphor, which is so frequent he could be caricatured by it, like Ozu's fixed camera, showing his working, his trademark, in a way that seems inevitably perfect for the scene. It's also as grimy and violent as The Insult, a poetically repellent world you'd escape immediately if you weren't being propelled through it in the pages of a book. I wouldn't say he finds the beauty in everything, but through his description, he seems to me to grasp the essence of everything, especially people. His later work is mellower, less ruthless, and more enjoyable for it. But the first few books offer the punch in the face I often seek in art.
July 21, 2022
Thomson’s Divided Kingdom is easily one of my favourite novels, a comfort read that I’ve re-read several times. I was therefore looking forward to my second of this author’s books.
The blurb had me hooked, a mysterious city by the sea with cult like ocean themed festivals of the dead, bring it on!
I didn’t quite get what I wanted.
This is a coming of age-ish gangster-ish type take that although was nicely written was a bit of a missed opportunity did me.
I didn’t quite buy in to some of the characters twists and there’s a lot of menstrual blood to deal with which isn’t quite my thing.
The blurb had me hooked, a mysterious city by the sea with cult like ocean themed festivals of the dead, bring it on!
I didn’t quite get what I wanted.
This is a coming of age-ish gangster-ish type take that although was nicely written was a bit of a missed opportunity did me.
I didn’t quite buy in to some of the characters twists and there’s a lot of menstrual blood to deal with which isn’t quite my thing.
August 26, 2017
Very well-written and vastly different than anything I've ever read. A subtle piece of art that steals your mind before you even realized you've been possessed. A focused triumph of solid storytelling.
November 8, 2017
unfulfilling, ultimately
August 15, 2024
Omg I think I've found another favorite author
What a ride that was
What a ride that was
July 29, 2015
I really enjoyed this in a strange sort of way. It was completely different, and almost a breath of fresh air.
Thomson's use of language was gorgeous. It was beautifully written - so descriptive, so vivid, and so full of wonderful imagery that I felt myself getting more emotionally involved than I usually do.
The story was set in what seemed like an alternative city with strange religious views on death and funerals, which in turn bred strange ceremonies and annual events. The main industry here was funerals, oddly enough.
My favourite things were mostly the the complex plot and the subtle intertwining of characters that Thomson had infused into the whole crazy idea. It began as a coming-of-age novel, then slowly evolved into something a bit more sinister, sexual and disturbing.
One thing that bothers me, though, is that it's almost impossible to place this book into a genre. It's a sort-of horror/thriller, but not really. It's kind-of crime, but maybe not. There's also nods towards religion with almost a touch of irony, but not quite.
I've noted down Rupert Thomson's other novels to have a look at. If he has written the rest of them as beautifully as this one, then I am definitely in for a treat.
It's only the second book of the year, but it's definitely my favourite so far!
Thomson's use of language was gorgeous. It was beautifully written - so descriptive, so vivid, and so full of wonderful imagery that I felt myself getting more emotionally involved than I usually do.
The story was set in what seemed like an alternative city with strange religious views on death and funerals, which in turn bred strange ceremonies and annual events. The main industry here was funerals, oddly enough.
My favourite things were mostly the the complex plot and the subtle intertwining of characters that Thomson had infused into the whole crazy idea. It began as a coming-of-age novel, then slowly evolved into something a bit more sinister, sexual and disturbing.
One thing that bothers me, though, is that it's almost impossible to place this book into a genre. It's a sort-of horror/thriller, but not really. It's kind-of crime, but maybe not. There's also nods towards religion with almost a touch of irony, but not quite.
I've noted down Rupert Thomson's other novels to have a look at. If he has written the rest of them as beautifully as this one, then I am definitely in for a treat.
It's only the second book of the year, but it's definitely my favourite so far!
put-down
August 5, 2011I doubt I will finish this. I've read enough of it to believe that the remainder will not be a pleasure. While I've enjoyed some books by Rupert Thomson none of them really lived up to The Insult, or even the first half of The Insult. His stories are populated by too many unlikable or evil characters.
December 11, 2010
a confusing entry from thompson never quite saw the point but enjoyed the read
December 24, 2013
none of the characters engaged me so I was neither disappointed nor relieved by the outcomes. I do enjoy Thomson's settings, almost a place we recognise but slightly out of kilter.
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