D

by Marcus Gibson

Read the sold-out novel that broke the record for the world's youngest novelist. "Don't even try this book if you don't have a strong stomach..." said the Sydney Morning Herald. "Thriller, it says on the back. Rather it is like being pulled through a nightmare..." Inspired by a recurring childhood nightmare, D is the story of Daniel Seaton, lonely and mysterious asylum inmate. D is not insane, but he lives in a terrible world of noises - noises he can hear from other people's ears. The doctors won't let him sleep, they want to keep him awake until he can stand it no more - all for the sake of their dream research. And now someone wants to kill D. Stalking him is a creature who can hear the noises in his head, and wants to stop them, to kill the sound. A nurse is brutally murdered, keys to the asylum go missing, and a terrifying figure in a white hood stalks the corridors. Beautiful intern Dianne Reicher is D's only hope. With her help he must fight to hold on to his sanity, his freedom... and his life.

Paperback

First published November 29, 1995

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Mar­cus Gibson’s first novel was pub­lished in 1995. The grue­some lit­er­ary thriller sold out in a few weeks. With pub­li­ca­tion shortly after his 22nd birth­day, Gib­son had bro­ken the stand­ing Guin­ness World Record for the world’s ‘youngest nov­el­ist writ­ing adult-themed work’ by two years.

Prior to the pub­li­ca­tion of ‘D’, Gib­son won recog­ni­tion in sev­eral short story and poetry com­pe­ti­tions. ‘D’ received favourable reviews in a num­ber of peri­od­i­cals, and Gib­son made media appear­ances includ­ing radio, print, and live appear­ances on morn­ing and late night television.

Gib­son is 37-years-old and lives in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia. His pro­fes­sional career has spanned con­struc­tion worker, script edi­tor, pre­sen­ter, cor­po­rate spokesper­son, pro­ducer, soft­ware devel­oper, busi­ness ana­lyst, knowl­edge man­ager, sus­tain­abil­ity advi­sor, and envi­ron­men­tal man­ager in a range of sec­tors includ­ing IT, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, prop­erty and finance, civil engi­neer­ing, and con­struc­tion. He con­tin­ues to write prolifically.

Reviews

[Hope · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man I wanted to like this book.
Knowing it was written by a 22yo (in 1995) both raised and lowered my expectations in a way? I kinda wish I hadn't known that going in.

The premise of this book (a man in an insane asylum for 11 years since he was 8) was awesome and I feel like it had so much potential but it was really slow and confusing to start, better in the middle when we got to have more of Dianne's POV, and then back to confusing and frantic at the end.
The ending felt like the author had about 12 ideas for books and wanted to put them ALL in this one book. Hectic.

There was definitely parts I loved about it, but mostly it just felt confusing and somehow both hectic & boring??

I think an aggressive edit could maybe have saved this book. 350~ pages instead of 480.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome thriller - by one of the world's greatest living writers.

This is a stunning debut novel.

I can't recommend it highly enough!

[Jodie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though I read it so many years ago now, still haunts me, it was so well written!