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Castle
Castle by J. Robert Lennon is a mesmerizing novel about memory, guilt, power, and violence
In the late winter of 2006, I returned to my home town and bought 612 acres of land on the far western edge of the county." So begins, innocuously enough, J. Robert Lennon's gripping, spooky, and brilliant new novel. Unforthcoming, formal, and more than a little defensive in his encounters with curious locals, Eric Loesch starts renovating a run-down house in the small, upstate New York town of his childhood. When he inspects the title to the property, however, he discovers a chunk of land in the middle of his woods that he does not own. What's more, the name of the owner is blacked out.
Loesch sets out to explore the forbidding and almost impenetrable forest—lifeless, it seems, but for a bewitching white deer—that is the site of an eighteenth-century Indian massacre. But this peculiar adventure story has much to do with America's current military misadventures—and Loesch's secrets come to mirror the American psyche in a paranoid age. The answer to what—and who—might lie at the heart of Loesch's property stands at the center of this daring and riveting novel from the author whose writing, according to Ann Patchett, "contains enough electricity to light up the country.""
In the late winter of 2006, I returned to my home town and bought 612 acres of land on the far western edge of the county." So begins, innocuously enough, J. Robert Lennon's gripping, spooky, and brilliant new novel. Unforthcoming, formal, and more than a little defensive in his encounters with curious locals, Eric Loesch starts renovating a run-down house in the small, upstate New York town of his childhood. When he inspects the title to the property, however, he discovers a chunk of land in the middle of his woods that he does not own. What's more, the name of the owner is blacked out.
Loesch sets out to explore the forbidding and almost impenetrable forest—lifeless, it seems, but for a bewitching white deer—that is the site of an eighteenth-century Indian massacre. But this peculiar adventure story has much to do with America's current military misadventures—and Loesch's secrets come to mirror the American psyche in a paranoid age. The answer to what—and who—might lie at the heart of Loesch's property stands at the center of this daring and riveting novel from the author whose writing, according to Ann Patchett, "contains enough electricity to light up the country.""
229 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
13 people are currently reading
584 people want to read
About the author
J. Robert Lennon
44 books288 followersJ. Robert Lennon is the author of three story collections and ten novels, and is co-editor of CRITICAL HITS, an anthology of writing on video games. He lives in Ithaca, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews
September 14, 2009
The story in this book was interesting, fairly entertaining, and had the potential to be explosive, but instead it merely fizzled along with just enough action to keep me reading. And although I don't mind unhappy or unclean endings, the ending to this book was unsatisfying, rushed, and lame.
The writing in the early stages of the story felt compressed and clumsy. The main character spends the first half of the book wondering why he's doing the things he's doing even though he's fully aware of his past and his motivations in the second half of the book. Other mysteries in the first half of the book aren't mysterious at all in the second half, again without the benefit of adequate connective tissue. I'm not sure why so many leaps occur in the narrative. Perhaps the publisher (one that I have never heard of before) was cheaping out on page counts and editing staff? I don't know.
Overall, this book was lightly entertaining but frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying.
Ouch?
The writing in the early stages of the story felt compressed and clumsy. The main character spends the first half of the book wondering why he's doing the things he's doing even though he's fully aware of his past and his motivations in the second half of the book. Other mysteries in the first half of the book aren't mysterious at all in the second half, again without the benefit of adequate connective tissue. I'm not sure why so many leaps occur in the narrative. Perhaps the publisher (one that I have never heard of before) was cheaping out on page counts and editing staff? I don't know.
Overall, this book was lightly entertaining but frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying.
Ouch?
June 22, 2021
Well-written psychological novel with an unreliable narrator.
September 13, 2009
First 10 pages of this book are okay .. and then the next first 150 are amazing. The book works on withheld mysteries which can often feel like a kind of trick, but the absence of any clue to the narrator's story becomes creepy, vivid, and mind bending. The book degrades significantly when these mysteries are revealed. The writing uses the narrator's stuffy self-conscience to both ironic and oddly self-revealing ends, but once things are shown the story becomes a knowable trope. The book's connection to Vietnam and Iraq feel even more remote and unconvincing despite the compelling detail. I wonder if this is the problem of all puzzles, rebus, and stories that are essentially puzzle pieces being put together as a narrative? Twin Peaks had this same issue. As soon as Bob was explained, the show lost its compelling inner workings. As Lost winds up its seasons long narrative it becomes less and less compelling. I wondered in reading the last half of the book how satisfying it would be read a book where the withheld mystery was never actually revealed? (Five stars because I ended up reading this book in 2 sittings, and was on the edge of my seat in utter lit angst the firs time.)
July 22, 2024
Slowly, steadily, horrifying. About a man who fights the worst type of warfare, how he became who he is, and where he goes from there.
May 27, 2010
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
It's always such a crushing disappointment to see a novel start great and then peter out by the end, like is precisely the case with J. Robert Lennon's latest, Castle; because I gotta admit, the first two-thirds of this deeply unsettling book is one of the best spooky stories I've ever read, which like the best of Victorian "Weird" fiction achieves its creeps in a deceptively subtle way, the slow-moving story of an unusually judgmental older man and disgraced career soldier who has recently decided to move back to his despised small hometown in upstate New York for unexplained reasons. As the first half of this book continues, then, and the man slowly gets settled isolationist-style in the large tract of supposedly haunted woods he has recently purchased, a series of ever-increasingly bizarre mysteries start quietly unfolding in front of our eyes, including why he's so self-righteous, why he got kicked out of the military, why the town's residents are always giving him random cold shoulders, why he moved back in the first place, and most importantly, what exact supernatural mystery lies in the square parcel of land in the middle of his property that the previous owner refuses to sell, an owner who has had his name excised from all corresponding legal documents, and who for some reason has built a McMansion-sized medieval castle on said parcel, locked airtight and with properties that seem to defy several laws of physics.
Ah, but then we get to the last third, where everything suddenly starts falling apart -- because although I won't be revealing any spoilers today, I will go so far as to say that the book turns out to have no actual supernatural elements at all, and that the grounded-in-reality, "ripped from the headlines" explanation Lennon comes up with for everything is both ho-hum and overly incredulous, an ending that made me both yawn and angrily yell, "Really, Lennon? Really?" (And as long as we're on the subject of unreasonable leaps in logic -- although I happily accept repressed memories as a legitimate storytelling device, to have a character completely block out every single detail of an entire half-decade of his life, a period that he claims later is the most important formative period of his entire youth, simply smacks of lazy structuring on the part of the author, a flat excuse for adding a hackneyed ending which could've been done a whole lot better.) Also, despite the following being almost a spoiler, you deserve to know that the last third of the book features dozens of explicit scenes of a child being psychologically and physically tortured; and as someone who now has kids as a regular part of his own life, I've discovered that such scenes are so upsetting to me as to be nearly unreadable, a situation I suppose is the case for many parents out there, which is why I consider it fair that you know about it long before you decide to even pick the book up in the first place. Castle is getting as high a score today as it is because of the first half being so great, but make no mistake over its second half dropping precipitously in quality; and while it does get a tepid recommendation today overall, it also comes with a strong warning for the buyer to beware.
Out of 10: 7.1
It's always such a crushing disappointment to see a novel start great and then peter out by the end, like is precisely the case with J. Robert Lennon's latest, Castle; because I gotta admit, the first two-thirds of this deeply unsettling book is one of the best spooky stories I've ever read, which like the best of Victorian "Weird" fiction achieves its creeps in a deceptively subtle way, the slow-moving story of an unusually judgmental older man and disgraced career soldier who has recently decided to move back to his despised small hometown in upstate New York for unexplained reasons. As the first half of this book continues, then, and the man slowly gets settled isolationist-style in the large tract of supposedly haunted woods he has recently purchased, a series of ever-increasingly bizarre mysteries start quietly unfolding in front of our eyes, including why he's so self-righteous, why he got kicked out of the military, why the town's residents are always giving him random cold shoulders, why he moved back in the first place, and most importantly, what exact supernatural mystery lies in the square parcel of land in the middle of his property that the previous owner refuses to sell, an owner who has had his name excised from all corresponding legal documents, and who for some reason has built a McMansion-sized medieval castle on said parcel, locked airtight and with properties that seem to defy several laws of physics.
Ah, but then we get to the last third, where everything suddenly starts falling apart -- because although I won't be revealing any spoilers today, I will go so far as to say that the book turns out to have no actual supernatural elements at all, and that the grounded-in-reality, "ripped from the headlines" explanation Lennon comes up with for everything is both ho-hum and overly incredulous, an ending that made me both yawn and angrily yell, "Really, Lennon? Really?" (And as long as we're on the subject of unreasonable leaps in logic -- although I happily accept repressed memories as a legitimate storytelling device, to have a character completely block out every single detail of an entire half-decade of his life, a period that he claims later is the most important formative period of his entire youth, simply smacks of lazy structuring on the part of the author, a flat excuse for adding a hackneyed ending which could've been done a whole lot better.) Also, despite the following being almost a spoiler, you deserve to know that the last third of the book features dozens of explicit scenes of a child being psychologically and physically tortured; and as someone who now has kids as a regular part of his own life, I've discovered that such scenes are so upsetting to me as to be nearly unreadable, a situation I suppose is the case for many parents out there, which is why I consider it fair that you know about it long before you decide to even pick the book up in the first place. Castle is getting as high a score today as it is because of the first half being so great, but make no mistake over its second half dropping precipitously in quality; and while it does get a tepid recommendation today overall, it also comes with a strong warning for the buyer to beware.
Out of 10: 7.1
February 13, 2014
What an extraordinary piece of work this is. When our first-person narrator, Eric, arrives in a rural area of upstate New York to buy a dilapidated house near a stuffy small town, we assume this is going to be one of those business-as-usual tales of dire events in the past coming home to roost in the present. In a sense, this is indeed what happens, but not at all could it be said that Castle is business as usual.
We soon become aware that Eric is no flawless hero, and perhaps no hero at all. His voice is one of prissy, selfconscious pedantry (the effect should be dull but in fact is surprisingly readable), as if he were focusing great effort on distancing himself from the world; the first time he falls prey to an irrational fear -- in this instance, of going down into the house's cellar -- we find this diagnosis fairly accurate, for he tells us how he years ago learned to conquer fear by converting it into anger. Of course, this means he's prey to fits of irrational anger, but Eric evidently hasn't solved that last piece of the equation.
On the property he's just bought there's a huge rock, and right next to it there's an area, undetailed on his map, that has been specifically declared not part of the sale to him. Of course, that makes him all the keener to find out what's there -- not a task so easy as it might seem because he keeps getting inexplicably lost in the woodland between his house and the rock . . . and this despite, as he several times primly reminds us, his impeccable sense of direction. But eventually he makes it and discovers that the little bit of verboten terrain contains a decrepit castle.
Soon he starts recovering memories that he has clearly been carefully keeping at a distance from himself, memories of how his childhood was largely taken over by a crazed behavioral psychologist, Avery Stiles, who through a sadistic course of treatment trained the young Eric into, near enough, psychopathy -- hence this distancing we've been noticing all through the text. Eric's not a serial killer, or anything so corny, but his numbing of himself to the world and to other people means he has the potential to commit great evil. And in the second, more recent flood of memories that he reveals to us, we discover that the evil he has indeed committed is of a kind that we should have expected from the training he received in his impressionable youth . . .
Castle isn't a thriller in the conventional sense -- although Lennon was able to make my pulse pound when he wanted it to. Instead it's a perfectly controlled, near-allegorical unpicking of not just this country's most recent defining moment but also a longer, slower cancer that's most often ignored or even lauded. That could, of course, have been -- however worthy! -- a recipe for tedium. But no: Castle had me transfixed throughout.
Addendum: I've just discovered that the GoodReads/Amazon computer has categorized this book as horror. Gawdelpus. Horrifying in its implications, yes; but horror it ain't.
We soon become aware that Eric is no flawless hero, and perhaps no hero at all. His voice is one of prissy, selfconscious pedantry (the effect should be dull but in fact is surprisingly readable), as if he were focusing great effort on distancing himself from the world; the first time he falls prey to an irrational fear -- in this instance, of going down into the house's cellar -- we find this diagnosis fairly accurate, for he tells us how he years ago learned to conquer fear by converting it into anger. Of course, this means he's prey to fits of irrational anger, but Eric evidently hasn't solved that last piece of the equation.
On the property he's just bought there's a huge rock, and right next to it there's an area, undetailed on his map, that has been specifically declared not part of the sale to him. Of course, that makes him all the keener to find out what's there -- not a task so easy as it might seem because he keeps getting inexplicably lost in the woodland between his house and the rock . . . and this despite, as he several times primly reminds us, his impeccable sense of direction. But eventually he makes it and discovers that the little bit of verboten terrain contains a decrepit castle.
Soon he starts recovering memories that he has clearly been carefully keeping at a distance from himself, memories of how his childhood was largely taken over by a crazed behavioral psychologist, Avery Stiles, who through a sadistic course of treatment trained the young Eric into, near enough, psychopathy -- hence this distancing we've been noticing all through the text. Eric's not a serial killer, or anything so corny, but his numbing of himself to the world and to other people means he has the potential to commit great evil. And in the second, more recent flood of memories that he reveals to us, we discover that the evil he has indeed committed is of a kind that we should have expected from the training he received in his impressionable youth . . .
Castle isn't a thriller in the conventional sense -- although Lennon was able to make my pulse pound when he wanted it to. Instead it's a perfectly controlled, near-allegorical unpicking of not just this country's most recent defining moment but also a longer, slower cancer that's most often ignored or even lauded. That could, of course, have been -- however worthy! -- a recipe for tedium. But no: Castle had me transfixed throughout.
Addendum: I've just discovered that the GoodReads/Amazon computer has categorized this book as horror. Gawdelpus. Horrifying in its implications, yes; but horror it ain't.
May 12, 2009
J. Robert Lennon's fourth novel starts out in a familiar territory, but quickly strays from the path, following signs and markers from ghost stories and fairy tales. Eric Loesch has returned to rural upstate New York to renovate a house on a large parcel of land he has purchased. Although it's not clear why Loesch has come home, it quickly becomes apparent that something is very wrong. The forest behind his house beckons, but it rebuffs Loesch's efforts to explore it with inexplicable hostility. When he does manage to penetrate the perimeter, Loesch quickly finds himself disoriented in a dark and preternaturally quiet wood, calling to mind stories of New England's haunted forests. He's infatuated with an elusive and seemingly sentient white deer, but the discovery of a malevolent presence in his domain threatens to upset the peace Loesch craves.
Or does he want something else? At home, Loesch goes about his business with admirable efficiency, but his interactions with the people in town range from brusque to outright offensive. Some believe family secrets brought him back; others suspect he's involved in an infamous military scandal; but everyone agrees that he's wound too tight. When his search to learn the identity of the land's previous owner reveals that a mysterious figure owns a strange castle in the heart of his property, Loesch all but becomes unhinged.
Castle is a masterpiece of mood with an atmosphere suffused with dread. Even the discovery of a pile of moldy old books is freighted with the hysterical realism of Gothic horror. Loesch's isolation and decline are reminiscent of Irish Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea — the story of a man whose view of the world and his place in it dominates the narrative but proves to be utterly unreliable.
In the second half of the novel, Lennon weaves the multiple strands of Loesch's bizarre past with the strange hell of his present. In many respects, Castle mines the same territory as Paul Auster's Man in the Dark, but is a vastly superior book. Not every novelist has the courage to embrace a protagonist who has deceived himself in precisely the same way thuggish theocrats deceive their citizens.
Or does he want something else? At home, Loesch goes about his business with admirable efficiency, but his interactions with the people in town range from brusque to outright offensive. Some believe family secrets brought him back; others suspect he's involved in an infamous military scandal; but everyone agrees that he's wound too tight. When his search to learn the identity of the land's previous owner reveals that a mysterious figure owns a strange castle in the heart of his property, Loesch all but becomes unhinged.
Castle is a masterpiece of mood with an atmosphere suffused with dread. Even the discovery of a pile of moldy old books is freighted with the hysterical realism of Gothic horror. Loesch's isolation and decline are reminiscent of Irish Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea — the story of a man whose view of the world and his place in it dominates the narrative but proves to be utterly unreliable.
In the second half of the novel, Lennon weaves the multiple strands of Loesch's bizarre past with the strange hell of his present. In many respects, Castle mines the same territory as Paul Auster's Man in the Dark, but is a vastly superior book. Not every novelist has the courage to embrace a protagonist who has deceived himself in precisely the same way thuggish theocrats deceive their citizens.
October 12, 2009
This took me forever to read because of the narrator, who rambles on endlessly about everything. The gist of the story here is that Eric Loesch returns to his hometown of Gerrysburg, New York after years away because of a widely publicized bad career move. He buys a house and some land out in the middle of nowhere and then discovers that he doesn't own a portion of land in the middle of the woods. Even weirder is that the owner's name is blacked out on the papers he has received.
Once Eric begins his investigation into who owns the land, apparently repressed memories begin to come back to him from his childhood--and these are not good memories. And finally, almost at the very end of the book does the reader find out Eric's story and what happened that drove him home.
This was a book that is a very slow read and was supposed to be a novel of paranoia and a thriller. Paranoia, I just didn't get and it definitely wasn't a thriller because it moved too slow for me and was at times quite boring. It often brought on a fit of narcolepsy whenever I tried to read it. I finished it thinking that there had to be some redeeming quality since it was a bookmarks pick but by the end I was just fed up.
Once Eric begins his investigation into who owns the land, apparently repressed memories begin to come back to him from his childhood--and these are not good memories. And finally, almost at the very end of the book does the reader find out Eric's story and what happened that drove him home.
This was a book that is a very slow read and was supposed to be a novel of paranoia and a thriller. Paranoia, I just didn't get and it definitely wasn't a thriller because it moved too slow for me and was at times quite boring. It often brought on a fit of narcolepsy whenever I tried to read it. I finished it thinking that there had to be some redeeming quality since it was a bookmarks pick but by the end I was just fed up.
June 9, 2009
Of all the books I've read that have been described as "Kafka-esque," this one definitely is, or at least starts out like it. Straightforward, journalistic, about an alienated narrator who goes back and forth between being hurt and offended by the people around him and hurting and offending them. Then it goes more regressive-squishy, with a digression at the end about torture in the military that I think definitely weakens the book overall. In sum, though, I thought the book was very interesting.
Oh, and also - the author used a lot of obvious foreshadowing, which I never like.
I left the store feeling much more safe and secure, even though I didn't have the Browning yet. It was the feel of it in my hand; in spite of its flaws, or perhaps because of them, it filled me with confidence. I thought of my father's Enfield then, and wondered if it had made him feel the same way. Of course, in reality, the gun did not make him safer--on the contrary, it was the instrument of his death. But I was not my father.
...and I *just* got the obvious Kafka comparison with the title. Wow.
Oh, and also - the author used a lot of obvious foreshadowing, which I never like.
I left the store feeling much more safe and secure, even though I didn't have the Browning yet. It was the feel of it in my hand; in spite of its flaws, or perhaps because of them, it filled me with confidence. I thought of my father's Enfield then, and wondered if it had made him feel the same way. Of course, in reality, the gun did not make him safer--on the contrary, it was the instrument of his death. But I was not my father.
...and I *just* got the obvious Kafka comparison with the title. Wow.
October 23, 2021
9First rate story telling with absorbing prose the story moves from the simple to the far more challenging as we get hints that all is not as it seems with the narrator. At first we are led to believe he is turning over a new chapter in his life but soon we have a darker story within a story, a mystery within a mystery slowly evolving into a meticulous psychological thriller. Is this really happening or are we in his nightmare as he seeks some form of redemption Ultimately an indictment of American policy in one of its darker periods in recent history. In Lennon the spirit of Poe lives on.
August 8, 2013
Wonderful writer - insightful, masterly with description. Also the author of MAILMAN, which is one of the funniest portraits of outright despair I have read. CASTLE is very different to MAILMAN, and the first two thirds had me spellbound and walking into walls. Very ambitious novel about memory, abuse, mental illness, with a mystery at its heart that actually reminded me of LOST. I think it takes a great writer to be able to render moving to a small town and renovating a house in such an interesting and absorbing way. A keeper.
July 28, 2009
I picked up this book based on a favorable NPR recommendation. I have to say that at first I found the story very gripping; to be more specific, I felt uneasy and often downright terrified. There is some excellent suspense in this book, and plenty of mystery to pull you along.
That said, I found the mystery's resolution to be implausible, cloudy, and generally disappointing. The ending ruins the rest of the book.
That said, I found the mystery's resolution to be implausible, cloudy, and generally disappointing. The ending ruins the rest of the book.
May 1, 2018
Castle is a psychological thriller with a slow reveal that in style and atmosphere reminds me a lot of Iain Bank’s early fiction; e.g. The Wasp Factory, The Bridge and Walking on Glass. Like The Wasp Factory, Castle is peopled with unlikeable characters doing appalling things.
It is a step down from Banks, particularly evident in the choppy reveal of the connection between the title character Loesch and Dr. Stiles.
I also did not like Lennon’s use of the as the impetus for Loesch’s return to his childhood home. It’s not clear from Lennon’s presentation of Loesch’s role in the scandal whether Lennon views these events as evil or simply unfortunate. To my mind there is no ambiguity. They were evil. The lack of moral compass or learning throughout the book left me feeling dirty and disheartened at its conclusion.
On my buy, borrow, skip scale: A weak borrow
It is a step down from Banks, particularly evident in the choppy reveal of the connection between the title character Loesch and Dr. Stiles.
I also did not like Lennon’s use of the as the impetus for Loesch’s return to his childhood home. It’s not clear from Lennon’s presentation of Loesch’s role in the scandal whether Lennon views these events as evil or simply unfortunate. To my mind there is no ambiguity. They were evil. The lack of moral compass or learning throughout the book left me feeling dirty and disheartened at its conclusion.
On my buy, borrow, skip scale: A weak borrow
October 17, 2011
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Book review: "Castle"
by Jenny Shank
Posted: 05/30/2009 09:34:00 AM MDT
J. Robert Lennon's new novel "Castle" begins simply: "In the late winter of 2006, I returned to my home town and bought 612 acres of land on the far western edge of the country." The narrator, Eric Loesch, has come back to Gerrysburg, the town where he grew up in upstate New York, and for many chapters that's all the reader learns about his past. Lennon treats us to a good dose of Loesch's personality and code of living, however, through his interactions with a realtor, a hardware store employee, and a librarian: Loesch is exacting, disinclined to self-revelation, precise, and a harsh judge of other people. "Castle" bears the wit and inventiveness of Lennon's previous books, but it surpasses them in its psychological complexity.
At first the reader is put in the position of the other townspeople -- who strike us as normally inquisitive but seem nosy to Loesch -- we want to know more about Eric's background and what his business will be in this economically depressed town. Unwilling to indulge idle curiosity, Loesch purchases outright an old house in the middle of a dense wood and sets about renovating it without explaining himself to anyone.
Lennon cleverly releases hints at the many mysteries underlying "Castle" -- Loesch worked in "infrastructure and information," he's "very handy," and two unspeakable occurrences happened to him, one in childhood, one during his working life, that were notable enough that people read about them in newspapers. He has an estranged sister who turns up on his doorstep one day. Loesch evaluates her in this manner: "Living had changed her. Whereas I had staved off the worst effects of aging with exercise, self-discipline, and healthy eating, Jill had indulged herself from an early age, abusing her body, sleeping irregularly, and running with a dissolute, irresponsible crowd." He dispatches his sister quickly.
Loesch seems to have plenty of money and no work to report to, so he doesn't appear to have much to do, but his house keeps giving him assignments. Mysterious provocations arise, such as the fact that the name of the previous owner of the house has been blacked out on all the documents connected to its purchase, and Loesch discovers there is a small parcel of land in the middle of his property that he does not own, according to the documentation.
The forest around the house is almost impenetrable, populated by few creatures apart from a white deer of the sort that is frequently seen in the area -- except that this one turns out to be a particularly helpful deer. Loesch hikes into the woods and discovers a small castle there, like the one he saw in a child's drawing that he found when cleaning out the house. Objects disappear, and other mysteries ensue, giving the appearance of supernatural occurrences. But as Lennon gradually peels back the layers of his story, he reveals that at its core lie several incidents that are as real as the headlines of yesterday's newspaper.
Eric Loesch is unlikable in the sense that you probably wouldn't want to meet him and thereby become a target of his insults, but his perspective is relentlessly enjoyable because of the caustic wit of his insights about himself and others.
He offends the realtor when he interprets her overture of friendship as romantic interest, and nearly gets into a fistfight at the hardware store when he won't let the clerk help him carry his purchases to the car. Loesch must return to the hardware store several more times, and tries to avoid the clerk that he'd fought with, "But," as Loesch describes, "in a frustrating trick of fate, the man in front of me had some intractable problem involving his company charge account," and he's forced to confront the clerk again, who greets him by name. "I noticed that his name tag read RANDALL. But I declined to use this information." Loesch's voice is consistently droll, or at least it seems that way until the events of his past surface and cast his attitude in a different light.
"Castle" is a great ride, and it's a difficult book to discuss without spoiling any of its many surprises. When Lennon reveals the answers to the mystery, it's both satisfying and horrifying. The ending makes you want to turn back to the beginning, which doesn't seem so funny any more.
Book review: "Castle"
by Jenny Shank
Posted: 05/30/2009 09:34:00 AM MDT
J. Robert Lennon's new novel "Castle" begins simply: "In the late winter of 2006, I returned to my home town and bought 612 acres of land on the far western edge of the country." The narrator, Eric Loesch, has come back to Gerrysburg, the town where he grew up in upstate New York, and for many chapters that's all the reader learns about his past. Lennon treats us to a good dose of Loesch's personality and code of living, however, through his interactions with a realtor, a hardware store employee, and a librarian: Loesch is exacting, disinclined to self-revelation, precise, and a harsh judge of other people. "Castle" bears the wit and inventiveness of Lennon's previous books, but it surpasses them in its psychological complexity.
At first the reader is put in the position of the other townspeople -- who strike us as normally inquisitive but seem nosy to Loesch -- we want to know more about Eric's background and what his business will be in this economically depressed town. Unwilling to indulge idle curiosity, Loesch purchases outright an old house in the middle of a dense wood and sets about renovating it without explaining himself to anyone.
Lennon cleverly releases hints at the many mysteries underlying "Castle" -- Loesch worked in "infrastructure and information," he's "very handy," and two unspeakable occurrences happened to him, one in childhood, one during his working life, that were notable enough that people read about them in newspapers. He has an estranged sister who turns up on his doorstep one day. Loesch evaluates her in this manner: "Living had changed her. Whereas I had staved off the worst effects of aging with exercise, self-discipline, and healthy eating, Jill had indulged herself from an early age, abusing her body, sleeping irregularly, and running with a dissolute, irresponsible crowd." He dispatches his sister quickly.
Loesch seems to have plenty of money and no work to report to, so he doesn't appear to have much to do, but his house keeps giving him assignments. Mysterious provocations arise, such as the fact that the name of the previous owner of the house has been blacked out on all the documents connected to its purchase, and Loesch discovers there is a small parcel of land in the middle of his property that he does not own, according to the documentation.
The forest around the house is almost impenetrable, populated by few creatures apart from a white deer of the sort that is frequently seen in the area -- except that this one turns out to be a particularly helpful deer. Loesch hikes into the woods and discovers a small castle there, like the one he saw in a child's drawing that he found when cleaning out the house. Objects disappear, and other mysteries ensue, giving the appearance of supernatural occurrences. But as Lennon gradually peels back the layers of his story, he reveals that at its core lie several incidents that are as real as the headlines of yesterday's newspaper.
Eric Loesch is unlikable in the sense that you probably wouldn't want to meet him and thereby become a target of his insults, but his perspective is relentlessly enjoyable because of the caustic wit of his insights about himself and others.
He offends the realtor when he interprets her overture of friendship as romantic interest, and nearly gets into a fistfight at the hardware store when he won't let the clerk help him carry his purchases to the car. Loesch must return to the hardware store several more times, and tries to avoid the clerk that he'd fought with, "But," as Loesch describes, "in a frustrating trick of fate, the man in front of me had some intractable problem involving his company charge account," and he's forced to confront the clerk again, who greets him by name. "I noticed that his name tag read RANDALL. But I declined to use this information." Loesch's voice is consistently droll, or at least it seems that way until the events of his past surface and cast his attitude in a different light.
"Castle" is a great ride, and it's a difficult book to discuss without spoiling any of its many surprises. When Lennon reveals the answers to the mystery, it's both satisfying and horrifying. The ending makes you want to turn back to the beginning, which doesn't seem so funny any more.
April 12, 2024
1 April 2024
Castle by Robert Lennon
J. Robert Lennon appears to be a popular, well-respected author. According to the bio snap on the back cover of this book, he’s been published in The Paris Review, Granta, Harper’s, Playboy, and The New Yorker. He is also a writing instructor at Cornell. Much to aspire to, here.
But of course you know what’s coming: again, I don’t get it. At least the New York Times Book Review snippet on the back cover calls it “confusing,” so I’m not alone in that take. It’s the “convincing” part with which I deeply disagree.
It’s clear to me why this book is on my list for the semester: it has an unlikeable protagonist, Eric Loesch. But unlikeable might be an understatement, here. This man comes off haughty and narcissistic, like a know-it-all who believes himself smarter than he actually is—the perfect example of the R. Buckminster Fuller quote, “The more we learn the more we realize how little we know.” His interchanges with everyone, but in particular Jennifer, at the start of the novel made my skin crawl: his behavior and word choices are snarky and lofty, and the dialogue is unconvincing. Like why did he believe Jennifer was hitting on him just because she thanked him for helping her make a sale? Also why did he make her feel bad for thanking him for the sale—as though she only wanted his money (which she obviously didn’t, she was just being kind)? At times, it was difficult for me to distinguish the protagonist’s persona from the authorial voice; although, I suppose we are to assume that everything in the story is protagonist’s persona and not authorial voice, since it’s written in the first person. The dialogue was just so unnatural…as though the author himself is so deeply autistic he misapprehends the mechanics of human engagement. This, along with the fact that our protagonist has zero intimate connections, made the story difficult to read because I simply didn’t care what happened to him.
Those missing intimate connections spoke volumes to the persona’s engagement with and author’s portrayal of women, in particular. Eric had zero compassion or goodwill toward women. Jennifer is referred to always further than arms-length as “Jennifer the real estate agent” for some twenty pages straight. Our author, despite the number of times Eric engages with her, never permits Jennifer any agency or depth. The same can be said for the sister, Jill, whom he represents as this thorn in his side for being a druggie and alcoholic who sleeps around (it turns out she’s none of those things anymore and might’ve only been those things as a coping mechanism for being the scapegoat of the family)—but no compassion or permission for depth is extended to her either. Some curiosity is eventually extended to her toward the end of the story, when she shows Eric how much she knows about bees (228). But that’s all she gets. Stiles’s wife and daughter are represented solely as impediments to Stiles’s work on constructing his castle. Eric’s mother is portrayed always the battered, victimized damsel without any complexity or agency. She can do nothing against Eric’s father to prevent Eric from seeing Dr. Stiles. Womp womp. Finally, there’s another Jennifer, this time a private first class, introduced with scant backstory at the book’s climax. Why the name Jennifer again? What is going on with this author’s representation of women in this book? Is this a reflection of the protagonist’s or the author’s disposition toward women? This made me deeply uncomfortable.
This book’s plot also left me wanting more. In it, Lennon dropped numerous threads to which he never returned. For example, what does this white deer represent? Why is it on the cover of the book? My best guess is a slaughtered innocence…? If so, why does the deer keep attempting to save Loesch? Then, Lennon has this perfect opportunity to draw a metaphor/link between Dr. Stiles’s tortured squirrel and the detainee being interrogated at Camp Alastor—but he never goes there. He leaves it untouched. Finally, how does the logic work if this agent was dishonorably discharged only to be called back for another mission at the end of the novel? I’m having such difficulty with this. He’s already stood trial for war crimes. There’s an implication here that he would *now* be working for intelligence, but he wasn’t before. He was in civil engineering (although the backstory on how he got into civil engineering is left mostly unexcavated). These dropped threads niggled at my brain.
The part that frustrated me most about this story was plot-based. First, the sleight of hand Lennon uses to keep his reader ignorant of Loesch’s history with Stiles—for fully half of the novel—felt absolutely disingenuous. Remember that it’s written in first person. So it baffles logic that Loesch demands the name on the deed of the land at the center of his newly purchased lot as though he doesn’t already know the name. Loesch finds the die cast locomotive on the table and picks it up as though he’s never seen it before. Loesch keeps the child’s drawing of a castle aside as he clears the house as though he doesn’t know it was Stiles’s daughter who drew it. He even reads Stiles’s book as though he is unaware of the book’s authorship. It seems to me that Lennon was attempting to retain some mystery about the protagonist even though it’s written in first-person—and that felt really slimy to me. It was more confusion than mystery. It would be one thing if Lennon was implying that Loesch had memory loss because of PTSD/trauma…so I kept waiting and waiting for such a suggestion to surface, but it never did. Womp womp.
On a similar note, the appearance of Camp Alastor at the climactic moment of the novel itself annoyed me for various reasons. First, Lennon did everything in his power to avoid mentioning Loesch’s motives earlier—as though his protagonist were deliberately trying to avoid thinking about them (but if he were avoiding them, why buy the house?). The appearance of this new setting and new characters in Camp Alastor meant that we needed all fresh-new backstory and descriptions right at the climax of the novel. And instead of engaging me, I was mentally kicked out of the reality of the story. I was bored and frustrated. Moreover, since I dislike war stories for various reasons, I was annoyed: I didn’t choose to read this because I thought it’d be a story about war crimes.
Perhaps all of this could’ve been tied together neatly in a bow if there were some lesson here (or even a sniff or hint of a lesson) about PTSD and its fallout. Instead, at the end of the novel, our protagonist heads off on a new mission. Frankly, the whole thing felt underdeveloped, disjointed, and instead of mysterious, it was confusing.
As for my own craft, I suppose I learned from Lennon a handful of things. Even if my protagonist is flawed, she will still remain likeable enough to compassionate. She’s lovable. She’s just an utter disaster. My protagonist’s actions will always make some logical sense. I’ll be conscientious to be faithful to my reader about my protagonist’s thoughts/plans/history. Since she’s written in the first person, her motives and knowledge will not be withheld from my reader’s view, if possible, so that I am not being disingenuous with my reader. Any thematic or plot-based threads I create will be purposeful and carried through to the ending (or removed, if not useful). Finally, I will not jolt my reader out of the pre-established setting right at the climactic moment so that they become mired in new backstory right as the pace accelerates.
I would not recommend this book. It wasn’t an enjoyable read.
Castle by Robert Lennon
J. Robert Lennon appears to be a popular, well-respected author. According to the bio snap on the back cover of this book, he’s been published in The Paris Review, Granta, Harper’s, Playboy, and The New Yorker. He is also a writing instructor at Cornell. Much to aspire to, here.
But of course you know what’s coming: again, I don’t get it. At least the New York Times Book Review snippet on the back cover calls it “confusing,” so I’m not alone in that take. It’s the “convincing” part with which I deeply disagree.
It’s clear to me why this book is on my list for the semester: it has an unlikeable protagonist, Eric Loesch. But unlikeable might be an understatement, here. This man comes off haughty and narcissistic, like a know-it-all who believes himself smarter than he actually is—the perfect example of the R. Buckminster Fuller quote, “The more we learn the more we realize how little we know.” His interchanges with everyone, but in particular Jennifer, at the start of the novel made my skin crawl: his behavior and word choices are snarky and lofty, and the dialogue is unconvincing. Like why did he believe Jennifer was hitting on him just because she thanked him for helping her make a sale? Also why did he make her feel bad for thanking him for the sale—as though she only wanted his money (which she obviously didn’t, she was just being kind)? At times, it was difficult for me to distinguish the protagonist’s persona from the authorial voice; although, I suppose we are to assume that everything in the story is protagonist’s persona and not authorial voice, since it’s written in the first person. The dialogue was just so unnatural…as though the author himself is so deeply autistic he misapprehends the mechanics of human engagement. This, along with the fact that our protagonist has zero intimate connections, made the story difficult to read because I simply didn’t care what happened to him.
Those missing intimate connections spoke volumes to the persona’s engagement with and author’s portrayal of women, in particular. Eric had zero compassion or goodwill toward women. Jennifer is referred to always further than arms-length as “Jennifer the real estate agent” for some twenty pages straight. Our author, despite the number of times Eric engages with her, never permits Jennifer any agency or depth. The same can be said for the sister, Jill, whom he represents as this thorn in his side for being a druggie and alcoholic who sleeps around (it turns out she’s none of those things anymore and might’ve only been those things as a coping mechanism for being the scapegoat of the family)—but no compassion or permission for depth is extended to her either. Some curiosity is eventually extended to her toward the end of the story, when she shows Eric how much she knows about bees (228). But that’s all she gets. Stiles’s wife and daughter are represented solely as impediments to Stiles’s work on constructing his castle. Eric’s mother is portrayed always the battered, victimized damsel without any complexity or agency. She can do nothing against Eric’s father to prevent Eric from seeing Dr. Stiles. Womp womp. Finally, there’s another Jennifer, this time a private first class, introduced with scant backstory at the book’s climax. Why the name Jennifer again? What is going on with this author’s representation of women in this book? Is this a reflection of the protagonist’s or the author’s disposition toward women? This made me deeply uncomfortable.
This book’s plot also left me wanting more. In it, Lennon dropped numerous threads to which he never returned. For example, what does this white deer represent? Why is it on the cover of the book? My best guess is a slaughtered innocence…? If so, why does the deer keep attempting to save Loesch? Then, Lennon has this perfect opportunity to draw a metaphor/link between Dr. Stiles’s tortured squirrel and the detainee being interrogated at Camp Alastor—but he never goes there. He leaves it untouched. Finally, how does the logic work if this agent was dishonorably discharged only to be called back for another mission at the end of the novel? I’m having such difficulty with this. He’s already stood trial for war crimes. There’s an implication here that he would *now* be working for intelligence, but he wasn’t before. He was in civil engineering (although the backstory on how he got into civil engineering is left mostly unexcavated). These dropped threads niggled at my brain.
The part that frustrated me most about this story was plot-based. First, the sleight of hand Lennon uses to keep his reader ignorant of Loesch’s history with Stiles—for fully half of the novel—felt absolutely disingenuous. Remember that it’s written in first person. So it baffles logic that Loesch demands the name on the deed of the land at the center of his newly purchased lot as though he doesn’t already know the name. Loesch finds the die cast locomotive on the table and picks it up as though he’s never seen it before. Loesch keeps the child’s drawing of a castle aside as he clears the house as though he doesn’t know it was Stiles’s daughter who drew it. He even reads Stiles’s book as though he is unaware of the book’s authorship. It seems to me that Lennon was attempting to retain some mystery about the protagonist even though it’s written in first-person—and that felt really slimy to me. It was more confusion than mystery. It would be one thing if Lennon was implying that Loesch had memory loss because of PTSD/trauma…so I kept waiting and waiting for such a suggestion to surface, but it never did. Womp womp.
On a similar note, the appearance of Camp Alastor at the climactic moment of the novel itself annoyed me for various reasons. First, Lennon did everything in his power to avoid mentioning Loesch’s motives earlier—as though his protagonist were deliberately trying to avoid thinking about them (but if he were avoiding them, why buy the house?). The appearance of this new setting and new characters in Camp Alastor meant that we needed all fresh-new backstory and descriptions right at the climax of the novel. And instead of engaging me, I was mentally kicked out of the reality of the story. I was bored and frustrated. Moreover, since I dislike war stories for various reasons, I was annoyed: I didn’t choose to read this because I thought it’d be a story about war crimes.
Perhaps all of this could’ve been tied together neatly in a bow if there were some lesson here (or even a sniff or hint of a lesson) about PTSD and its fallout. Instead, at the end of the novel, our protagonist heads off on a new mission. Frankly, the whole thing felt underdeveloped, disjointed, and instead of mysterious, it was confusing.
As for my own craft, I suppose I learned from Lennon a handful of things. Even if my protagonist is flawed, she will still remain likeable enough to compassionate. She’s lovable. She’s just an utter disaster. My protagonist’s actions will always make some logical sense. I’ll be conscientious to be faithful to my reader about my protagonist’s thoughts/plans/history. Since she’s written in the first person, her motives and knowledge will not be withheld from my reader’s view, if possible, so that I am not being disingenuous with my reader. Any thematic or plot-based threads I create will be purposeful and carried through to the ending (or removed, if not useful). Finally, I will not jolt my reader out of the pre-established setting right at the climactic moment so that they become mired in new backstory right as the pace accelerates.
I would not recommend this book. It wasn’t an enjoyable read.
October 2, 2016
A short book with some big, big twists; the biggest surprise of all being, perhaps, just how well the disparate elements manage to cohere. Castle starts out as the disturbingly vivid portrait of a sociopath--one you can't help but assume, simply by the fact of his incorrigible oddness, must be on his way toward a destructive, possibly murderous act. But one of the book's first major surprises is just how engaging and relatable its antiheroic, undemonstrative protagonist turns out to be. (There's definitely a lesson here about how first-person narration can make even the most unlikable personalities sympathetic.) As our understanding of Eric's childhood deepens, we can't help but develop a rooting interest; Castle evolves into more than a mere dispassionate character study as we begin to flash back to the monstrous abuse Eric suffered as a boy. Mix in elements of psychological horror and the effect is quite riveting. Lennon's execution is masterful, not only for the fusion of genre trappings, but for the way Eric's matter-of-fact voice contrasts the introduction of the surreal. No matter how precipitous, at times, the unbelievable and inexplicable come crashing into the world as we know it (or think we know it), Eric's phlegmatic description of events keeps us off-balance, uncertain: we don't know what's real, what's in his head, just how reliable or unreliable a narrator he is. One of the book's most astonishing reveals is, in fact, the creeping awareness that holy shit, this is all real (maybe).
As for the final twist, the final revelatory flashback, the conclusive piece of the existential puzzle--I can imagine a large percentage of readers hurling the book across the room at this point, and not entirely without cause. But again, the biggest surprise here is just how well so prodigious a temporal and geographic leap manages to work for me. And while the book comes dangerously close to sermonizing in the remaining pages, I actually think it all adds up to be quite a fascinating and thought-provoking account of events that, for all their topicality, for all the international shitstorm they caused, have largely escaped the kind of rigorous examination they deserve. Maybe because they're just so unutterably heinous, such a stain on our national character--which we have a real problem admitting is pretty goddamn ugly-looking right about now.
J. Robert Lennon dares to go there. This guy's creative writing classes must be fun.
As for the final twist, the final revelatory flashback, the conclusive piece of the existential puzzle--I can imagine a large percentage of readers hurling the book across the room at this point, and not entirely without cause. But again, the biggest surprise here is just how well so prodigious a temporal and geographic leap manages to work for me. And while the book comes dangerously close to sermonizing in the remaining pages, I actually think it all adds up to be quite a fascinating and thought-provoking account of events that, for all their topicality, for all the international shitstorm they caused, have largely escaped the kind of rigorous examination they deserve. Maybe because they're just so unutterably heinous, such a stain on our national character--which we have a real problem admitting is pretty goddamn ugly-looking right about now.
J. Robert Lennon dares to go there. This guy's creative writing classes must be fun.
September 9, 2016
This book is a psychological journey from start to finish, and its implications reach deeply within and all around us, from the nuclear American family to the treatment of Iraqi POWs by American soldiers. J. Robert Lennon has accomplished something truly special.
Protagonist Eric Loesch's relationship with his father, revealed gradually throughout the novel, mirrors that of many a real life 1950s-1970s American father/son relationship, at least those about which I've read or been told in which the father's fears and insecurities manifest in the form of coldness and a desire for discipline, a need to instill strength in his son. This desire/need leads Eric's father, we learn, to a decision that changes the course of Eric's life, makes him a different person than he possibly could've otherwise become, and gives readers the brilliant story that unfolds piece by eagerly awaited piece.
In the end, I found myself questioning my own psychological conditioning, my own limitations as a man and how those limitations came to be and what, if anything, I can do to overcome them.
The book is a little spooky, whimsical at times, always intelligent and smooth reading, and I couldn't put it down. In my opinion, it's a must read.
Protagonist Eric Loesch's relationship with his father, revealed gradually throughout the novel, mirrors that of many a real life 1950s-1970s American father/son relationship, at least those about which I've read or been told in which the father's fears and insecurities manifest in the form of coldness and a desire for discipline, a need to instill strength in his son. This desire/need leads Eric's father, we learn, to a decision that changes the course of Eric's life, makes him a different person than he possibly could've otherwise become, and gives readers the brilliant story that unfolds piece by eagerly awaited piece.
In the end, I found myself questioning my own psychological conditioning, my own limitations as a man and how those limitations came to be and what, if anything, I can do to overcome them.
The book is a little spooky, whimsical at times, always intelligent and smooth reading, and I couldn't put it down. In my opinion, it's a must read.
May 14, 2010
I don't quite know what to make of this book. At first I had hopes of a spupernatural twist, a la House of Leaves, but that was not to be. "Psychological suspense" doesn't cover it, either. The story could just about be described as "psychological" but it lacked any "suspense" elements. The language is quite formal and the protagonist, Eric Loesch, is not especially likeable, but in an oddly dispassionate way. One does not seem to be required to have any strong feelings about him or the things that happen to him. I was reminded very much of the writings of Thomas H. Cook, especially when Loesch begins to describe his childhood esperiences, which strain credibility. At least Cook is able to draw one into his characters' dysfunctions; unfortunately, Loesch's alienation only serves to alienate the reader.
September 30, 2012
Lennon is one of those authors whose books I always get excited about, although I don't always love them. I think I've read all of them (six?) and they're all very different, which in itself is fascinating. This one was creepy as hell. Eric Loesch returns to his hometown, buys a house and a piece of land and starts exploring the surrounding forest. The townspeople aren't thrilled to meet him, which is understandable since he is haughty and aggressive. His parents died a violent death, and something traumatic occurred in Eric's life recently. It's obvious to the reader, though not to Eric, that he is completely unhinged. The answers to his condition turn out to be terrifying.
I stayed up all night reading this, thinking: "Surely it can't get any worse than this?" And then it did, and I thought "Well there's gotta be some hope for redemption here at least", but there wasn't. There's just evil and darkness, and it's not exactly enjoyable but it's damn good.
I stayed up all night reading this, thinking: "Surely it can't get any worse than this?" And then it did, and I thought "Well there's gotta be some hope for redemption here at least", but there wasn't. There's just evil and darkness, and it's not exactly enjoyable but it's damn good.
February 6, 2012
I have to say, I normally hate the label "psychological thriller" because there's so rarely anything "psychological" about them. But it's the perfect genre for this book.
The structure is unusual, but effective. The protagonist, Eric Loesch, is mysterious and lonely. We follow him through a series of unexplained decisions that don't seem to make much sense. But in the second half of the book, gradually things trickle out until everything is understood.
Perhaps the reveals come a bit too quick, but I can't really fault it.
Lennon's writing is compelling. The book has a very man vs. nature feel to it, which is normally not my thing, but I always wanted to know where the book was going and never questioned putting it down. (Which I definitely do. Thus most of my ratings are 3 star or higher.)
I'll be looking for other books because I'm definitely intrigued. An unusual and enjoyable novel, for sure.
The structure is unusual, but effective. The protagonist, Eric Loesch, is mysterious and lonely. We follow him through a series of unexplained decisions that don't seem to make much sense. But in the second half of the book, gradually things trickle out until everything is understood.
Perhaps the reveals come a bit too quick, but I can't really fault it.
Lennon's writing is compelling. The book has a very man vs. nature feel to it, which is normally not my thing, but I always wanted to know where the book was going and never questioned putting it down. (Which I definitely do. Thus most of my ratings are 3 star or higher.)
I'll be looking for other books because I'm definitely intrigued. An unusual and enjoyable novel, for sure.
June 25, 2009
A confusing book, written from the perspective, I take it, of someone suffering from post traumatic stress. He moves back to his home town and buys a house that needs a lot of repairs. Early on we see that he has trouble dealing with people, that he is good at repairing his house, that he has problems with his sister that comes from their childhood, that his parents are dead (murder/suicide?) There is a mystery involved, along with his house he has a a large parcel of land, in the midst of his land is a plot that he does not own. What I could not wrap my mind around was finding out that he had blocked a lot of his childhood out of his mind, that he knew the man who owned the house, that he had known what was on that parcel of land in the middle of his property. The whole thing didn't work for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2009
See full review at www.contrarymagazine.com
Eric Loesch is at once simple and wholly unknowable, a kind of typical ex-military man with clipped speech and abrupt manners. Lennon places the reader squarely inside Eric’s brain, letting us move with him through his anxiety, fear, and climactic struggle. Most refreshingly, The Castle is not a novel in which the reader is too all-knowing, setting the author and reader at a distance from the protagonist. By putting the reader inside Eric’s experience, Lennon avoids a kind of smirking irony that would ruin the tone of the book. The reader learns about Eric as Eric is learning about himself, piece-by-piece.
Eric Loesch is at once simple and wholly unknowable, a kind of typical ex-military man with clipped speech and abrupt manners. Lennon places the reader squarely inside Eric’s brain, letting us move with him through his anxiety, fear, and climactic struggle. Most refreshingly, The Castle is not a novel in which the reader is too all-knowing, setting the author and reader at a distance from the protagonist. By putting the reader inside Eric’s experience, Lennon avoids a kind of smirking irony that would ruin the tone of the book. The reader learns about Eric as Eric is learning about himself, piece-by-piece.
June 29, 2009
I liked this book until the end. The end made me feel ripped off. It was unbelievable to me. Both the millitary parts (my husband is in the army, and been over there, and we know what it is really like), and the main character's eventual killing of his teacher, for which there was no good explanation for after so many years. The seeming supernatural element went nowhere either. Had that element been expanded and woven in to the story instead of being a useless detail, the book could have been much better. The beginning was good, and grabbed me, so I kept reading, even after it began to seem quite convoluted.
July 30, 2009
I can't tell you why I loved this book so much. Perhaps the reference to the white deer found locally in the old Seneca Army Depot, the subtle tensions, the way the character moves so quickly from rational thought to paranoia, the way you go there right with him. This book wins my clear favorite read for 2009.
August 26, 2009
This. Book. Was. Awful. Do not read this book. Do not pick up this book, because you will think that maybe it can redeem itself and you will be wrong but you will finish the book and then your brain will hurt and you will have nothing to say except that this book is awful.
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October 4, 2010
This book is rad. Simply told, psychologically complex. A man with a mysterious past returns to his hometown in Upstate New York and buys a house. As he fixes it up, he discovers a castle built in the middle of his woodsy property. A suspenseful tale that develops into an indictment of U.S. foreign policy.
December 30, 2009
The first half of this book is one of the creepiest, most suspenseful things I've ever read. Not that much actually happens, but I just really needed to find out why the main character is so... off.
November 23, 2009
One of the most terrifying books I have ever read. Amazing commentary on the war in Iraq and on paranoia and torture in general. Eric Loesch is an antihero worthy of Dostoevsky. The writing is also, despite being so frightening, beautifully detailed.
July 25, 2013
The deeper you get into this novel, the more disturbing it becomes. For best results, try to go in without reading a synopsis or jacket copy and read at night.
February 28, 2012
downloaded audio by Iambik for review
ARC for review by publisher
Listened 2/16/12 - 2/23/12
3 Stars - Recommended to readers who don't mind the spooky stuff turning out to be not-so-spooky
Audio Download (approx 10 hrs)
Publisher: Iambik / Graywolf Press
Narrator: Mark Douglas Nelson
I dig suspense as much as the next guy. Gimme a book with some creepy old farmhouse full of strange noises at night, surrounded by over 600 acres of dense dark woods, and you've got yourself one happy little reader. The only thing that could ruin a book like this would be if it failed to live up to its own hype, right?
Ooh Castle, how you built me up only to bring me down, slowly and angrily, to beat my fists against the muddy humus beneath my knees...
J. Robert Lennon's Castle initially came to me as a review copy, among others, from the lovely ladies at Graywolf Press. Somehow, it fell to the wayside and began to get buried beneath the other, newer review copies that were arriving... and I've always felt horrible about that.
A few months ago, however, I ran across the audiobook on Iambik's website and realized that this was my chance to finally get it read. Much, much sooner than I would ever get to it in print copy, too! And so it became my commuting companion for the entire week.
It all begins with Eric Loesch, an apparently unstable and irritable man, and his purchase of an old abandoned farmhouse upon returning to his hometown. As he peruses the deed to the property, he discovers a small portion of land, deep within his woods, that does not belong to him. Bent on uncovering the identity of the person who has gone to great lengths to hide their ownership of whatever lies hidden back there in the forest, Eric displays unusual suspicion towards the townspeople, many of whom seem to remember him - though he does not appear to remember them. Callous and cold, he seems to harbor a strong dislike for unnecessary human contact and will go to great extremes to protect his privacy when he feels someone may be placing it in jeopardy.
While seeking out whatever information he can about the mysteriously blackened out name on the house papers, Eric begins to renovate the farmhouse. He appears to be suspended in a state of constant unease whenever he is in and around his house, suffering from a strange, unexplained fear of the basement and waking in the night to the sounds of crying or keening, or whistling?
As the home renovations come to an end, Eric rewards himself with a little trek through his woods to the large outcropping of rock that's visible from his bedroom window. Priding himself on his flawless sense of direction, he makes slow and aggravating headway through the thick and gloomy forest, eventually losing track of time and getting himself lost. Just as panic is threatening to grip his heart, suddenly - out of nowhere - a white deer appears and leads him out of the woods safely. (Though he is not sure why, he feels a connection to what he calls his deer.) On his second attempt, he successfully reaches the rock outcropping but manages to lose his backpack which contains all of his supplies and a change of clothes. Yet what bothers him more is what he finds on the other side of that large, slick boulder. It's a miniature castle, just as dilapidated as the farmhouse he brought back to life, and he immediately understands that this impenetrable fortress does not belong to him.
Sounds like a good set up so far, doesn't it? You have to give props to Lennon for not showing his hand too early... the man knows how to draw out the suspense. Throughout the first half of the book, as you get to know Eric, as the little nuances of his personality come to light - how quick to anger he is, how he holds everyone around him in such contempt, how much more intelligent he believes himself to be, his incredible sense of entitlement - you begin to wonder just how much Eric knows... about himself. I mean, is it really possible for this guy to be such a crass, volatile person? What is it about his fellow humans that he finds so disgusting?
Over the course of the second half of the book - without giving too much away - he begins to recall the shitty, abusive childhood he suffered at the hands of his indifferent parents and a wacky, loose-cannon sort of psychologist; and about his career in the military and the reason he headed back to his hometown, and things start to come into focus for us. Sadly, the more we learn about Eric and his motives, the less spooky or supernatural the whole first half of the book starts to seem. Towards the end, I got the feeling that the author just sort of ran out of steam and settled with a hum-drum ending just to get the whole thing over with. To say the ending was depressing and a let-down would be an understatement.
To be honest, as the end of the book was drawing near and I was still struggling to make heads or tales of what was going on, I thought up at least two other directions the author could have chosen to take that would have kept me happy and maintained the overall creepy/uncertain theme he had going on.
The narrator that Iambik chose for this audiobook threw me off quite a bit. Mark Douglas Nelson's voice sounds like that of a much older man, causing me to assume Eric Loesch was a man in his late 50's or early 60's, when in reality he may have been closer to 30 or 40. Though, as booksexyreview and I discussed the audio in detail, during the week that we were listening to it (she was always a few chapters ahead of me) she pointed out that the things that bothered me about Mark - his long drawn out but's... and his extremely proper pronunciations - were actually quite a good fit for the strange and awkward Eric. At the time, I found it difficult to agree with her because it was all quite distracting to me. But now that I have put some space between me and the book, I think I can see where she was coming from.
So, a mediocre review for a middle of the road sort of book. While nothing to write home about, it might be worth a flip through on a slow, rainy afternoon when you've got some time to kill and no expectations to kill it with.
ARC for review by publisher
Listened 2/16/12 - 2/23/12
3 Stars - Recommended to readers who don't mind the spooky stuff turning out to be not-so-spooky
Audio Download (approx 10 hrs)
Publisher: Iambik / Graywolf Press
Narrator: Mark Douglas Nelson
I dig suspense as much as the next guy. Gimme a book with some creepy old farmhouse full of strange noises at night, surrounded by over 600 acres of dense dark woods, and you've got yourself one happy little reader. The only thing that could ruin a book like this would be if it failed to live up to its own hype, right?
Ooh Castle, how you built me up only to bring me down, slowly and angrily, to beat my fists against the muddy humus beneath my knees...
J. Robert Lennon's Castle initially came to me as a review copy, among others, from the lovely ladies at Graywolf Press. Somehow, it fell to the wayside and began to get buried beneath the other, newer review copies that were arriving... and I've always felt horrible about that.
A few months ago, however, I ran across the audiobook on Iambik's website and realized that this was my chance to finally get it read. Much, much sooner than I would ever get to it in print copy, too! And so it became my commuting companion for the entire week.
It all begins with Eric Loesch, an apparently unstable and irritable man, and his purchase of an old abandoned farmhouse upon returning to his hometown. As he peruses the deed to the property, he discovers a small portion of land, deep within his woods, that does not belong to him. Bent on uncovering the identity of the person who has gone to great lengths to hide their ownership of whatever lies hidden back there in the forest, Eric displays unusual suspicion towards the townspeople, many of whom seem to remember him - though he does not appear to remember them. Callous and cold, he seems to harbor a strong dislike for unnecessary human contact and will go to great extremes to protect his privacy when he feels someone may be placing it in jeopardy.
While seeking out whatever information he can about the mysteriously blackened out name on the house papers, Eric begins to renovate the farmhouse. He appears to be suspended in a state of constant unease whenever he is in and around his house, suffering from a strange, unexplained fear of the basement and waking in the night to the sounds of crying or keening, or whistling?
As the home renovations come to an end, Eric rewards himself with a little trek through his woods to the large outcropping of rock that's visible from his bedroom window. Priding himself on his flawless sense of direction, he makes slow and aggravating headway through the thick and gloomy forest, eventually losing track of time and getting himself lost. Just as panic is threatening to grip his heart, suddenly - out of nowhere - a white deer appears and leads him out of the woods safely. (Though he is not sure why, he feels a connection to what he calls his deer.) On his second attempt, he successfully reaches the rock outcropping but manages to lose his backpack which contains all of his supplies and a change of clothes. Yet what bothers him more is what he finds on the other side of that large, slick boulder. It's a miniature castle, just as dilapidated as the farmhouse he brought back to life, and he immediately understands that this impenetrable fortress does not belong to him.
Sounds like a good set up so far, doesn't it? You have to give props to Lennon for not showing his hand too early... the man knows how to draw out the suspense. Throughout the first half of the book, as you get to know Eric, as the little nuances of his personality come to light - how quick to anger he is, how he holds everyone around him in such contempt, how much more intelligent he believes himself to be, his incredible sense of entitlement - you begin to wonder just how much Eric knows... about himself. I mean, is it really possible for this guy to be such a crass, volatile person? What is it about his fellow humans that he finds so disgusting?
Over the course of the second half of the book - without giving too much away - he begins to recall the shitty, abusive childhood he suffered at the hands of his indifferent parents and a wacky, loose-cannon sort of psychologist; and about his career in the military and the reason he headed back to his hometown, and things start to come into focus for us. Sadly, the more we learn about Eric and his motives, the less spooky or supernatural the whole first half of the book starts to seem. Towards the end, I got the feeling that the author just sort of ran out of steam and settled with a hum-drum ending just to get the whole thing over with. To say the ending was depressing and a let-down would be an understatement.
To be honest, as the end of the book was drawing near and I was still struggling to make heads or tales of what was going on, I thought up at least two other directions the author could have chosen to take that would have kept me happy and maintained the overall creepy/uncertain theme he had going on.
The narrator that Iambik chose for this audiobook threw me off quite a bit. Mark Douglas Nelson's voice sounds like that of a much older man, causing me to assume Eric Loesch was a man in his late 50's or early 60's, when in reality he may have been closer to 30 or 40. Though, as booksexyreview and I discussed the audio in detail, during the week that we were listening to it (she was always a few chapters ahead of me) she pointed out that the things that bothered me about Mark - his long drawn out but's... and his extremely proper pronunciations - were actually quite a good fit for the strange and awkward Eric. At the time, I found it difficult to agree with her because it was all quite distracting to me. But now that I have put some space between me and the book, I think I can see where she was coming from.
So, a mediocre review for a middle of the road sort of book. While nothing to write home about, it might be worth a flip through on a slow, rainy afternoon when you've got some time to kill and no expectations to kill it with.
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