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Game of survival
A broken cable, a useless speaker, darkness. Five frightened people huddled in a crippled elevator about to take its final plunge. And the old games are played out.
A novel of shattering human revelation. It hurls five strangers - an aggressive businessman, a neurotic housewife, a pro-football star, and an alcoholic professor - into a sudden, terrifying intimacy, as they are forced to come to terms with painful truths that can save or destroy them all.
A novel of shattering human revelation. It hurls five strangers - an aggressive businessman, a neurotic housewife, a pro-football star, and an alcoholic professor - into a sudden, terrifying intimacy, as they are forced to come to terms with painful truths that can save or destroy them all.
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First published May 1, 1968
43 people want to read
About the author
Marijane Meaker
13 books18 followersMarijane Meaker is also known as M.E. Kerr, Ann Aldrich, and Vin Packer.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 16, 2022
Game of Survival, first published in 1968, by Marijane Meaker (aka Vin Packer, Ann Aldrich, M.E. Kerr) is the story of five people trapped in an elevator with a broken cable and failing brakes. The setting is New York City in a monster snowstorm in 1968.
It is not, however, a disaster story for the most part. Rather, the meat of the story is the backstories of these five people who passed the time getting to know each other.
To make it fun though, one of the five, Charlie Latham, a writing professor for a correspondence course, decided in a drunken moment to pass himself off as Minister Smoke. This was a character from a story by a student whose sexy photograph enthralled the professor as much as her steamy writing and who had just written him she was at a nearby hotel.
A second character, Faith Graeff, a proper lady recounted her life story which included a husband who told her he wanted a divorce and a shy son who raised snakes in their basement.
Josie Swift was the third member of the group and her real story, though never revealed, was that she was dating a Senator, one much like Bobby Kennedy.
A fourth character is T.T. Blades, once a star NFL player, now desperately trying to reach his wife before their cruise left without him.
Whistler, an anxious controlling businessman, was the final member of the gang of five.
What Meaker does do well here is to give life to these five characters, all with complex backstories, in effect showing us all that there’s far more to each person we meet than you think at first. Each person has had their own trials and tribulations. The current crisis – being trapped in an elevator about to plummet effectively plays second fiddle to the backgrounds of each of these people.
It is not, however, a disaster story for the most part. Rather, the meat of the story is the backstories of these five people who passed the time getting to know each other.
To make it fun though, one of the five, Charlie Latham, a writing professor for a correspondence course, decided in a drunken moment to pass himself off as Minister Smoke. This was a character from a story by a student whose sexy photograph enthralled the professor as much as her steamy writing and who had just written him she was at a nearby hotel.
A second character, Faith Graeff, a proper lady recounted her life story which included a husband who told her he wanted a divorce and a shy son who raised snakes in their basement.
Josie Swift was the third member of the group and her real story, though never revealed, was that she was dating a Senator, one much like Bobby Kennedy.
A fourth character is T.T. Blades, once a star NFL player, now desperately trying to reach his wife before their cruise left without him.
Whistler, an anxious controlling businessman, was the final member of the gang of five.
What Meaker does do well here is to give life to these five characters, all with complex backstories, in effect showing us all that there’s far more to each person we meet than you think at first. Each person has had their own trials and tribulations. The current crisis – being trapped in an elevator about to plummet effectively plays second fiddle to the backgrounds of each of these people.
September 8, 2014
One of the few books written by Marijane Meaker (one of the founders of Lesbian Pulp Fiction) under her real name, Game of Survival is a suspense novel about five strangers trapped in an elevator in a New York City hotel during a blizzard. Cut off from the rest of the world as people on the outside race to prevent the detached elevator from plummeting twenty stories, the trapped passengers attempt to pass the time and distract themselves by sharing stories from their past. As tempers and patience unravel, these five strangers learn more about themselves through what they share with one another... and what they don't.
What would normally be just another mini-disaster story takes on a whole new shape with the plot device of the elevator passengers sharing stories from their past, first about their experiences during the Northeast blackout of 1965 and then about their "worst mistakes." As a result, half of the action in the book takes place in flashbacks that reveal the backgrounds and motivations of the main characters. The flashbacks, which are presented as personal memories outside of the current time dialogue, are revealing not only by what they show and how the character views the flashback (hints of the unreliable narrator in most of the flashbacks), as well as by the revelation after each one of what part of the past event each character did not share in their version of the story. It's an interesting device that makes Game of Survival more of a character study then a rescue mission, and lends a greater level of depth than I originally suspected going in.
If there's one issue I've often had with novels featuring a group of strangers being trapped together in some unusual circumstance, it is that more often than not the author feels the need to make one of the characters a celebrity, and Meaker follows suit with including young football sensation T.T. Blades. Regardless of my bias, Booker's character didn't throw me off, and the obvious variety of the trapped characters covering the wide range of age and social (but not racial, interestingly enough) spectrum, while a bit suspect and convenient, didn't distract from my overall enjoyment of the story. This kind of menagerie of characters will also also leave the reader with a personal favorite, and mine is definitely the washed-up alcoholic womanizer Charles Latham (aka the unflappable Reverend Smoke).
What really saves the novel from mediocrity is not merely the depth of the characters, but the complexity of their tales and predicaments. While some authors always feel the need to wrap up all of the presented character flaws and dilemmas with neat solutions and happy endings, not much is resolved for these characters at the end, and in some cases what is seen as a positive step forward by the character might even be construed as a step backward or in the wrong direction altogether. The reader gains an insight into the characters not just by what they reveal the reader, but by what they don't reveal to the others and themselves, and invariably finds that they are invested in what becomes of them. While the titular "game of survival" is the storytelling that the elevator passengers engage in, it is also the game they play as they struggle - each in their own way, with their own inherent self-destructive qualities - to survive the lives they have built for themselves, and the choices they make in the process.
What would normally be just another mini-disaster story takes on a whole new shape with the plot device of the elevator passengers sharing stories from their past, first about their experiences during the Northeast blackout of 1965 and then about their "worst mistakes." As a result, half of the action in the book takes place in flashbacks that reveal the backgrounds and motivations of the main characters. The flashbacks, which are presented as personal memories outside of the current time dialogue, are revealing not only by what they show and how the character views the flashback (hints of the unreliable narrator in most of the flashbacks), as well as by the revelation after each one of what part of the past event each character did not share in their version of the story. It's an interesting device that makes Game of Survival more of a character study then a rescue mission, and lends a greater level of depth than I originally suspected going in.
If there's one issue I've often had with novels featuring a group of strangers being trapped together in some unusual circumstance, it is that more often than not the author feels the need to make one of the characters a celebrity, and Meaker follows suit with including young football sensation T.T. Blades. Regardless of my bias, Booker's character didn't throw me off, and the obvious variety of the trapped characters covering the wide range of age and social (but not racial, interestingly enough) spectrum, while a bit suspect and convenient, didn't distract from my overall enjoyment of the story. This kind of menagerie of characters will also also leave the reader with a personal favorite, and mine is definitely the washed-up alcoholic womanizer Charles Latham (aka the unflappable Reverend Smoke).
What really saves the novel from mediocrity is not merely the depth of the characters, but the complexity of their tales and predicaments. While some authors always feel the need to wrap up all of the presented character flaws and dilemmas with neat solutions and happy endings, not much is resolved for these characters at the end, and in some cases what is seen as a positive step forward by the character might even be construed as a step backward or in the wrong direction altogether. The reader gains an insight into the characters not just by what they reveal the reader, but by what they don't reveal to the others and themselves, and invariably finds that they are invested in what becomes of them. While the titular "game of survival" is the storytelling that the elevator passengers engage in, it is also the game they play as they struggle - each in their own way, with their own inherent self-destructive qualities - to survive the lives they have built for themselves, and the choices they make in the process.
May 5, 2012
This is definitely a book that wouldn't exist in today's era of cell phones and webcams. But it was written in 1968, long before such things existed. A group of strangers is locked in a damaged elevator and not knowing how precarious their position is, share their deepest secrets. We get to know them and see how terrible even the most genial person can be.
I found it utterly fascinating that she included a section of yes men, and I enjoyed that no one actually wanted to do anything to "fix" it because they were afraid of bucking the chain of command. It's a great look at people in and out of the elevator. And I have to say my favourite character is Josie. I found her story the most moving of all -- a girl who is still so naive but cognizant of the power she has over men. I think I'd enjoy more of Ms Meaker's writing (she has several pseudonyms!).
I found it utterly fascinating that she included a section of yes men, and I enjoyed that no one actually wanted to do anything to "fix" it because they were afraid of bucking the chain of command. It's a great look at people in and out of the elevator. And I have to say my favourite character is Josie. I found her story the most moving of all -- a girl who is still so naive but cognizant of the power she has over men. I think I'd enjoy more of Ms Meaker's writing (she has several pseudonyms!).
May 6, 2012
In this taught, tightly-written psychological thriller, five strangers who are nonetheless unknowingly linked together are trapped in an elevator as a snowstorm blankets the city. What they say to one another as they pass through their ordeal reveals characters of surprising depth not often found in pulp novels of this or any other era. 'Game of Survival' is a book that explores human failings in a very measured, sophisticated manner that I would classify as great literature.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews