What do you think?
Rate this book
Invisible World
An invitation from a dead man propels a Chicago plumber on a perilous journey from blue-collar America to the exotic Far East -- and beyond into dangerous, unchartered territory. Stylish, elegant and thrilling, Stuart Cohen's provocative debut draws readers into a treacherous world of artists and smugglers, duplicitous friends and seductive enemies. Invisible World is both a novel of adventure and a mesmerizing exploration of the unseen world. Andrew Mann's mundane existence ends the day he receives an astonishing communication from his jet-setting childhood friend, Clayton Smith. Over the years, Clayton had sent Andy one postcard after another, chronicling his daring worldwide travels as well as his tranformation into a cosmopolitan, successful artist in Hong Kong. Matters take a surreal turn when Clayton sends Andy an airplane ticket to Asia along with an invitation to his own funeral, dispatched shortly before his mysterious suicide. Clayton's posthumous message to his conventional "I've always been a wild card. Play me." Set on an irrevocably life-changing course, the reluctant Chicagoan becomes entangled in Clayton's treasure hunt for the perfect textile, an exquisite fabric mapping the "Invisible World" that lies beyond our senses. The lines between the material world and the invisible one lose distinction on this challenging, ciruitous quest, bringing Andy to the awe-inspiring vastness of Inner Mongolia... and the discovery of the strength and power within every man. Romantic and exciting, Stuart Cohen's graceful and provocative novel is a stunning literary journey. Peopled with intense, fascinating characters set in rich, exotic locales, and accented with touches of magical realism, this exhilarating expedition to the edge of the world will leave readers inspired.
- GenresFiction
340 pages, Hardcover
First published December 29, 1997
4 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
Stuart Archer Cohen
7 books47 followersInvisible World (Reganbooks/HarperCollins 1998)
The Stone Angels (Orion, 2003)
The Army of the Republic (St. Martin's Press, Sept 2008)
Born Cincinnati 1958.
Walnut Hills High School
Johns Hopkins Univ.
Columbia University, 1981
Moved to Juneau, Alaska 1982
Opened Invisible World, 1985 (Wool and Alpaca)
China, 1991, (Cashmere and Silk.)
Closed Invisible World, 1996
Published first novel, Invisible World, 1998
Ran out of money, 2001, Re-opened Invisible World, 2002
Published 17 Stone Angels in England, 2003, later translated into 9 other languages.
The Army of the Republic, St. Martin's Press, September 2008.
This is How it Really Sounds, St. Martin's, 2014
The Stone Angels (Orion, 2003)
The Army of the Republic (St. Martin's Press, Sept 2008)
Born Cincinnati 1958.
Walnut Hills High School
Johns Hopkins Univ.
Columbia University, 1981
Moved to Juneau, Alaska 1982
Opened Invisible World, 1985 (Wool and Alpaca)
China, 1991, (Cashmere and Silk.)
Closed Invisible World, 1996
Published first novel, Invisible World, 1998
Ran out of money, 2001, Re-opened Invisible World, 2002
Published 17 Stone Angels in England, 2003, later translated into 9 other languages.
The Army of the Republic, St. Martin's Press, September 2008.
This is How it Really Sounds, St. Martin's, 2014
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 22, 2024
Stuart Archer Cohen has a facility with metaphor. Small birds they are, that flit about your shoulders, alternately annoying you and making you smile. Every so often, among these birds, flaps a small and exceedingly dangerous dragon...or a swan - no less dangerous (as most women have been trying to tell you).
The "Invisible World" is something more than a map, but a map is the quest we're on. Clayton Smith has masterminded this quest; a scavenger hunt set to begin the moment he expends his suicidally-induced final breath. As it turns out, this melodramatic act is what it took to stir his childhood friend from the safety of his berth as a plumber in their old hometown and send him jetting off to Asia in a somberly funereal frame of mind. There he will meet two questionable people with miserably successful lives who will take turns betraying him as they all race to the finish line.
Cohen dances, and dances, and dances around for a full two-thirds of his book. I despaired in the midst of this as one tends to do when faith is tested. But he got there, he did, and addressed at last the self-taking of a life (in a manner so evocative that anyone sensitive to this sort of thing should here consider themselves so advised) and the existential power the act can wield on those caught in its afterburn...
Light destroyed all antique pieces, stealing away the color and vitality. That was the paradox of light; it made their beauty visible, and at the same time it started the chemical reactions among the fibers and the long-ago administered dyes that would destroy them. It made some colors darker, others it faded, and some it turned yellow or brown. Conservators had a word to describe the tendency of dyes to fade, a word that Holt found mystically appropriate: fugitive. A dye was said to be more or less fugitive. Some of the most fragile colors, the madder and the cochineal, pained him with their desire to flee, and it seemed to make them all the more beautiful to him. For this reason his apartment remained a poorly lit cave lined with a dark mosaic of geometrics or floral designs. Delicate gardens glimmered in the silk carpets on the floor, and on the walls the woven graphs of vanished societies cast their geometric statements into space. He kept them out of the sun though because it brought the time down on the heads of these survivors, who by dint of the darkness of a grave or an old chest had evaded the centuries. It left visitors with a sense that if they could only turn on more lights something miraculous would emerge.
Stuart Archer Cohen had more answers than I thought he might. This is a crazy little thing. Enter at your own risk.
The "Invisible World" is something more than a map, but a map is the quest we're on. Clayton Smith has masterminded this quest; a scavenger hunt set to begin the moment he expends his suicidally-induced final breath. As it turns out, this melodramatic act is what it took to stir his childhood friend from the safety of his berth as a plumber in their old hometown and send him jetting off to Asia in a somberly funereal frame of mind. There he will meet two questionable people with miserably successful lives who will take turns betraying him as they all race to the finish line.
Cohen dances, and dances, and dances around for a full two-thirds of his book. I despaired in the midst of this as one tends to do when faith is tested. But he got there, he did, and addressed at last the self-taking of a life (in a manner so evocative that anyone sensitive to this sort of thing should here consider themselves so advised) and the existential power the act can wield on those caught in its afterburn...
Light destroyed all antique pieces, stealing away the color and vitality. That was the paradox of light; it made their beauty visible, and at the same time it started the chemical reactions among the fibers and the long-ago administered dyes that would destroy them. It made some colors darker, others it faded, and some it turned yellow or brown. Conservators had a word to describe the tendency of dyes to fade, a word that Holt found mystically appropriate: fugitive. A dye was said to be more or less fugitive. Some of the most fragile colors, the madder and the cochineal, pained him with their desire to flee, and it seemed to make them all the more beautiful to him. For this reason his apartment remained a poorly lit cave lined with a dark mosaic of geometrics or floral designs. Delicate gardens glimmered in the silk carpets on the floor, and on the walls the woven graphs of vanished societies cast their geometric statements into space. He kept them out of the sun though because it brought the time down on the heads of these survivors, who by dint of the darkness of a grave or an old chest had evaded the centuries. It left visitors with a sense that if they could only turn on more lights something miraculous would emerge.
Stuart Archer Cohen had more answers than I thought he might. This is a crazy little thing. Enter at your own risk.
February 21, 2022
Oh, how I love this book. I found it at my local library, and after reading it was unwilling to give it back. For whatever reason, I couldn't seem to get my hands on a copy of it at that time, so I told the library I lost it and paid them for it. I've never done that before, but I couldn't bear to be without this book. There's something so wonderful about the tone of Cohen's writing and his knowledge of the world. His characters lived and breathed for me, and I kept wishing that I had an eccentric friend to disappear into the world and then lay out a quest to pull me along after him.
I have no idea how many times I've read this book now, but whatever that number is is not done growing yet!
I have no idea how many times I've read this book now, but whatever that number is is not done growing yet!
March 18, 2011
Ah, definitely one of the better books I read in 2010!
This book has been on my wish list for ages. Probably since 1998 when it was first published. I keep a list of books that sound interesting to me based on reviews, recs or general interest, and from time to time I decide I NEED new books, and then I pick some from that list. Somehow, I never picked Invisible World until 2010. And when I did, I only did because I bought it used via ebay, for a Euro. And then it lay on my "unread books" stack (well, one of many) for another while, until I picked it up and read it within a few hours. Because it was that entrancing.
"Invisible World" is a wonderful mix of a classic, but well-written thriller, in which the protagonist goes looking for a lost friend who supposedly died (not giving away anything here) in Hong Kong, and ends up in "Inner Mongolia", adding a wonderful, mystic element to the story. Mysterious, but not outrageously so (remember, I'm not a big fan of fantasy), with original characters that are, well, characters, "Invisible World" is everything that fiction should be. And we all know that good fiction is hard to find.
Conclusion: You should read it. You'll like it. No matter who you are.
And if you still don't believe me, let me tell you that, after reading the battered old paperback I had acquired via ebay, I went back and bought myself a brand-new hardcover of the book. That's how much I liked it.
ETA: Just noticed that Stuart Cohen is a goodreads author, and, hey, look at that picture! Very...attractive, what with the tousled hair and slightly opened shirt... He must have excellent publicity people. Hi Mr. Cohen!
*waves*
(gee, isn't goodreads fun? I LOVE this place!)
This book has been on my wish list for ages. Probably since 1998 when it was first published. I keep a list of books that sound interesting to me based on reviews, recs or general interest, and from time to time I decide I NEED new books, and then I pick some from that list. Somehow, I never picked Invisible World until 2010. And when I did, I only did because I bought it used via ebay, for a Euro. And then it lay on my "unread books" stack (well, one of many) for another while, until I picked it up and read it within a few hours. Because it was that entrancing.
"Invisible World" is a wonderful mix of a classic, but well-written thriller, in which the protagonist goes looking for a lost friend who supposedly died (not giving away anything here) in Hong Kong, and ends up in "Inner Mongolia", adding a wonderful, mystic element to the story. Mysterious, but not outrageously so (remember, I'm not a big fan of fantasy), with original characters that are, well, characters, "Invisible World" is everything that fiction should be. And we all know that good fiction is hard to find.
Conclusion: You should read it. You'll like it. No matter who you are.
And if you still don't believe me, let me tell you that, after reading the battered old paperback I had acquired via ebay, I went back and bought myself a brand-new hardcover of the book. That's how much I liked it.
ETA: Just noticed that Stuart Cohen is a goodreads author, and, hey, look at that picture! Very...attractive, what with the tousled hair and slightly opened shirt... He must have excellent publicity people. Hi Mr. Cohen!
*waves*
(gee, isn't goodreads fun? I LOVE this place!)
February 23, 2008
First novel from my friend Stuart & a great one at that! I don't say that because he's my friend; I'm relieved that his work is something I actually enjoy & can recommend happily. This is an adventure into the tapestry of life, how threads are woven together in such a way that even death cannot destroy them. Travels across continents & into hearts broken & restored.
January 12, 2016
This is a fantastic novel. A little slow starting but once it got me in its grip I couldn't put it down. Even when you think you know the ending there are a few curve balls coming. I don't think it's just because I'm curious about China or that I love textiles that I got sucked in. I would be an Andy lost in a foreign country trusting the people I met. Great book
June 15, 2011
Appealing to the mystery fan as well as an interest in different cultures and a fascination with maps, this is a captivating read.
November 16, 2012
Anyone who has journeyed with a backpack on the back roads of places where locals give you a double take, will quickly identify with the flow of this book. My favorite travel book.
September 10, 2016
Loved this book A+. A trip around the world , while traveling through the intricate paths of friendship and the back alleys of the heart. A journey for the mind!
November 24, 2018
Interesting well developed characters and an unpredictable (and thus enjoyable) plot
May 10, 2025
A man who is smuggling a rare textile out of Peru, after realising he is likely being tailed and investigated by a Peruvian man he met and befriended on the plane, proceeds to tell the woman next to him exactly how he smuggles ancient textiles and specifically an incredibly rare Peruvian type that involves grave robbing, while said man is just a few seats away? Fucking please. DNF.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
September 9, 2015Checked out a library copy to read on a trip and didn't get to it. Will try again some day.
July 29, 2014
I so love this book. lost track how many times I read it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews