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A Lonely Man
Two British men, both writers, meet by chance in Berlin. Robert is trying and failing to finish his next book while balancing his responsibilities as a husband and father. Patrick, a recent arrival in the city, is secretive about his past, but eventually reveals he has been ghostwriting the autobiography of a Russian oligarch. The oligarch is now dead, and Patrick claims to be a hunted man himself.
Although Robert doubts the truth of Patrick's story, it fascinates him, and he thinks it might hold the key to his own foundering novel. Working to gain the other man's trust, Robert draws out the details of Patrick's past while ensnaring himself ever more tightly in what might be a fantasist's creation, or a devastating international plot.
Through an elegant, existential game of cat-and-mouse, Chris Power's A Lonely Man depicts an attempt to create art at the cost of empathy. Robert must decide what is his for the taking--and whether some stories are too dangerous to tell.
Although Robert doubts the truth of Patrick's story, it fascinates him, and he thinks it might hold the key to his own foundering novel. Working to gain the other man's trust, Robert draws out the details of Patrick's past while ensnaring himself ever more tightly in what might be a fantasist's creation, or a devastating international plot.
Through an elegant, existential game of cat-and-mouse, Chris Power's A Lonely Man depicts an attempt to create art at the cost of empathy. Robert must decide what is his for the taking--and whether some stories are too dangerous to tell.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published March 30, 2021
153 people are currently reading
2295 people want to read
About the author
Chris Power
2 books55 followersChris Power is the author of the novel A Lonely Man (2021). His story collection Mothers (2018) was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. He lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 154 reviews
April 12, 2021
I picked this one up after I read an interview with the author, Chris Power. I don't normally read thrillers but I made an exception because I thought I might enjoy some light entertainment. The book turned out to be a real page-turner, and I've enjoyed Power's mastery of plot- and character-development.
Two expats meet by chance in Berlin - both writers. Later that night, one of them (Patrick) gets caught up in a fight, and the other one (Robert) saves him from further trouble. The two men hook up. It turns out that Patrick has an interesting story to tell, though not one Robert entirely believes. The story is about Russian oligarchs, murders dressed up as suicides, big money and Putin's corrupt Russia. As Patrick makes Robert his confidante, Robert discovers a source of inspiration for his book without any awareness of the risks that inevitably accompany such an endeavour.
I've noticed that the book has received mixed reviews here. I had mixed feelings myself at certain points. First of all, I don't think Putin's Russia can ever provide the same sense of excitement and curiosity as Stalin's or Brezhnev's Soviet Union, and therefore, a thriller about contemporary Russia will not carry the fascination that John le Carré's novels did. I believe the reason for that is that the Cold War was a collision between two worlds, two systematic theories, both of which drew passionate followers and devotees. What kind of passion can contemporary Russia incite? None! One can feel sorry for the dissidents who lose their lives or their freedom because of their opposition to Putin, and also some anger at the unwillingness of the West to properly investigate thinly dressed-up murders and call Putin to account, but that's all there is to it. The chapter 'Russia' seems closed for now, at least in terms of any world-historical significance, no matter how important this country may have been for most of the 20th century.
It would be a mistake, though, to judge the book solely by its connection to Russian history and politics. Power is a masterful writer and this, in my view, comes through most clearly in the parts of the book that are not closely related to the plot. The account of a friend's of Robert's suicide and Robert's response to it was deft, delicate, compassionate and entirely believable. The very first chapter which sets the two main characters up was well-drawn and conveyed the Berlin atmosphere beautifully. The tension as Patrick becomes ever more fearful of his persecutors but Robert fails to trust the testimony of his own senses keeps the reader on edge throughout.
So, overall, yes, this is a book I would recommend to any thriller-lover, although I do feel that the golden age of the political thriller has probably passed...
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.
Two expats meet by chance in Berlin - both writers. Later that night, one of them (Patrick) gets caught up in a fight, and the other one (Robert) saves him from further trouble. The two men hook up. It turns out that Patrick has an interesting story to tell, though not one Robert entirely believes. The story is about Russian oligarchs, murders dressed up as suicides, big money and Putin's corrupt Russia. As Patrick makes Robert his confidante, Robert discovers a source of inspiration for his book without any awareness of the risks that inevitably accompany such an endeavour.
I've noticed that the book has received mixed reviews here. I had mixed feelings myself at certain points. First of all, I don't think Putin's Russia can ever provide the same sense of excitement and curiosity as Stalin's or Brezhnev's Soviet Union, and therefore, a thriller about contemporary Russia will not carry the fascination that John le Carré's novels did. I believe the reason for that is that the Cold War was a collision between two worlds, two systematic theories, both of which drew passionate followers and devotees. What kind of passion can contemporary Russia incite? None! One can feel sorry for the dissidents who lose their lives or their freedom because of their opposition to Putin, and also some anger at the unwillingness of the West to properly investigate thinly dressed-up murders and call Putin to account, but that's all there is to it. The chapter 'Russia' seems closed for now, at least in terms of any world-historical significance, no matter how important this country may have been for most of the 20th century.
It would be a mistake, though, to judge the book solely by its connection to Russian history and politics. Power is a masterful writer and this, in my view, comes through most clearly in the parts of the book that are not closely related to the plot. The account of a friend's of Robert's suicide and Robert's response to it was deft, delicate, compassionate and entirely believable. The very first chapter which sets the two main characters up was well-drawn and conveyed the Berlin atmosphere beautifully. The tension as Patrick becomes ever more fearful of his persecutors but Robert fails to trust the testimony of his own senses keeps the reader on edge throughout.
So, overall, yes, this is a book I would recommend to any thriller-lover, although I do feel that the golden age of the political thriller has probably passed...
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.
February 21, 2021
A writer struggling with his second book happens across a ghostwriter of celebrity autobiographies - with quite the story to tell. Hired to write the autobio of an exiled Russian oligarch - one of Putin’s many enemies - the oligarch has been found dead of an apparent suicide. But the ghostwriter is convinced that Putin is behind the death and that his assassins are hunting down all associates of the oligarch - and he’s next.
Chris Power’s debut novel A Lonely Man starts promisingly and has an intriguing premise but he doesn’t do enough to develop it into something more engaging. As a result my interest began to dip after the first act and kept going down until I was relieved to finish the book.
Power sets up the premise well and I enjoyed the initial meetings between Robert and Patrick. Robert’s a frustrated novelist, Patrick’s a man on the run - all well and good. But beyond learning about Patrick’s involvement with Russian politics, nothing further happens. What was the point of seeing Patrick get the job of ghostwriter when he already told us that’s what he was hired to do? It added nothing. Robert goes to a friend’s funeral, he goes to his Swedish holiday home to write, he contemplates an affair for no reason, there’s some suggestion of harassment from Russian goons - it’s precious little substance to make up nearly all of a novel.
I think Power was trying to create some ambiguity about whether or not Patrick was telling the truth or was making it up but I was never convinced he was a fantasist, which only made the ending all the more anticlimactic and flat. Also, Power attempted some feeble pontificating about the ethics of a writer writing about other people’s lives for their own gain which was neither clever or thoughtful.
The passages about the writing process itself were sorta interesting, the book is easy to read and is mostly well-written, and I liked the early scenes of the novel. But for a literary thriller it’s not very tense at all and painfully insubstantial. Also, Power has nothing new to say about the Putin regime that most people won’t already know/suspect (let alone those like me who’ve read entire books on the subject like Ben Mezrich’s Once Upon a Time in Russia) so it’s an extra-forgettable narrative!
It starts well but Chris Power unfortunately failed to realise any of the premise’s potential. A Lonely Man is an increasingly tedious and underwhelming literary thriller that leaves no impression behind whatsoever.
Chris Power’s debut novel A Lonely Man starts promisingly and has an intriguing premise but he doesn’t do enough to develop it into something more engaging. As a result my interest began to dip after the first act and kept going down until I was relieved to finish the book.
Power sets up the premise well and I enjoyed the initial meetings between Robert and Patrick. Robert’s a frustrated novelist, Patrick’s a man on the run - all well and good. But beyond learning about Patrick’s involvement with Russian politics, nothing further happens. What was the point of seeing Patrick get the job of ghostwriter when he already told us that’s what he was hired to do? It added nothing. Robert goes to a friend’s funeral, he goes to his Swedish holiday home to write, he contemplates an affair for no reason, there’s some suggestion of harassment from Russian goons - it’s precious little substance to make up nearly all of a novel.
I think Power was trying to create some ambiguity about whether or not Patrick was telling the truth or was making it up but I was never convinced he was a fantasist, which only made the ending all the more anticlimactic and flat. Also, Power attempted some feeble pontificating about the ethics of a writer writing about other people’s lives for their own gain which was neither clever or thoughtful.
The passages about the writing process itself were sorta interesting, the book is easy to read and is mostly well-written, and I liked the early scenes of the novel. But for a literary thriller it’s not very tense at all and painfully insubstantial. Also, Power has nothing new to say about the Putin regime that most people won’t already know/suspect (let alone those like me who’ve read entire books on the subject like Ben Mezrich’s Once Upon a Time in Russia) so it’s an extra-forgettable narrative!
It starts well but Chris Power unfortunately failed to realise any of the premise’s potential. A Lonely Man is an increasingly tedious and underwhelming literary thriller that leaves no impression behind whatsoever.
April 1, 2021
At first, A Lonely Man appears to be the archetypal Difficult Second Book. Its narrator is one Robert Prowe, who published a collection of short stories a few years ago to ‘some good reviews, a small prize and negligible sales’, and is now behind on delivering a novel he hasn’t even started writing. (Power published his debut collection, Mothers, in 2018.) Robert goes on to ruminate on whether authors should draw inspiration for their fiction from their own lives.
Slowly, something more intriguing unfolds. Robert crosses paths with Patrick – a stranger but, like him, an Englishman in Berlin. When the two become friends, Patrick tells an incredible story about what has led him there: a story about being the ghostwriter of a Russian oligarch’s autobiography, and mingling with the rich and beautiful; a story about the oligarch dying in mysterious circumstances, and Patrick, the possessor of his secrets, being pursued across Europe by shady characters. Robert doesn’t believe him... but he wants to use the story.
Some of what we read is Patrick talking to Robert; some is Robert’s novel-in-progress, his fictionalised, spiced-up version of Patrick’s account. (And of course, everything we read is a fiction concocted by Chris Power. Unless it isn’t? The similarities between the author and the character of Robert make it easy to speculate.) These layers are captured in the title: the phrase ‘a lonely man’ never appears in the novel, and could be applied to either Robert, Patrick or the oligarch. On top of this tension between stories, the plot becomes unexpectedly thrilling towards the end. Robert’s rendering of Patrick’s tale gives way to a truly tense denouement, as though his sensationalised characters have crept off the page and invaded his real life.
Honestly, though, I think the thing I liked most about A Lonely Man was just the writing on a sentence level. Power has a great eye for the mundane details of domesticity, including the the sort of parenting stuff I normally can’t stand reading about but really appreciated here. And it wasn’t until after finishing the book that I realised how clear the settings were in my mind. Its excellence is not showy; it feels effortless. I savoured every perfectly crafted line.
I received an advance review copy of A Lonely Man from the publisher through NetGalley.
TinyLetter | Linktree
Slowly, something more intriguing unfolds. Robert crosses paths with Patrick – a stranger but, like him, an Englishman in Berlin. When the two become friends, Patrick tells an incredible story about what has led him there: a story about being the ghostwriter of a Russian oligarch’s autobiography, and mingling with the rich and beautiful; a story about the oligarch dying in mysterious circumstances, and Patrick, the possessor of his secrets, being pursued across Europe by shady characters. Robert doesn’t believe him... but he wants to use the story.
Some of what we read is Patrick talking to Robert; some is Robert’s novel-in-progress, his fictionalised, spiced-up version of Patrick’s account. (And of course, everything we read is a fiction concocted by Chris Power. Unless it isn’t? The similarities between the author and the character of Robert make it easy to speculate.) These layers are captured in the title: the phrase ‘a lonely man’ never appears in the novel, and could be applied to either Robert, Patrick or the oligarch. On top of this tension between stories, the plot becomes unexpectedly thrilling towards the end. Robert’s rendering of Patrick’s tale gives way to a truly tense denouement, as though his sensationalised characters have crept off the page and invaded his real life.
Honestly, though, I think the thing I liked most about A Lonely Man was just the writing on a sentence level. Power has a great eye for the mundane details of domesticity, including the the sort of parenting stuff I normally can’t stand reading about but really appreciated here. And it wasn’t until after finishing the book that I realised how clear the settings were in my mind. Its excellence is not showy; it feels effortless. I savoured every perfectly crafted line.
I received an advance review copy of A Lonely Man from the publisher through NetGalley.
TinyLetter | Linktree
April 1, 2021
Published today 1/4/21
Chris Power’s debut collection of short stories “Mothers” was well received, and the author has also carved out a niche for himself as an expert on the short story form with a regular “brief survey of the short story” column in the online Guardian. This is his debut novel.
And its protagonist is an English born writer – Robert, who has published a successful set of short stories but is now struggling badly for inspiration for the novel on which he has taken an advance. Robert, his Swedish wife Karijn and their two young daughters left London (taking advantage of the rise in London property prices – fueled of course at the top end by Russian oligarchs) for a new life in Berlin.
Robert in London was a copywriter but the property proceeds and book advance mean he is meant to be a full time writer – but while Karijn and the children settle quickly into Berlin, Robert’s rather self-pitying writer’s block (with perhaps an element of early-mid-life crisis) means he lacks a sense of belonging in the City, patience with his children and real connection with his rather embattled wife who at one point says “Write, don’t write but leave us out of the pity party. Can you do that? Can you be with us a little bit before you tell me, yet again, that your life is a disaster”
The book opens in a bookshop with he and another man reaching for the same book – we later find out Bolaño’s “Antwerp”). The other man identifies himself as a fellow writer before, rather the worse for drink, he disrupts a reading by a third author.
As an aside you will note the frequent references here in the opening scene to books and writing – this is a novel very self-consciously about writing.
When Robert and Karijn later save the same man – Patrick - from a drunken beating – Robert, struck by their similarities and keen to meet someone new, agrees to meet him. Immediately he is struck by the man’s mysterious manner and what, at first, strikes him as his rather implausible story.
Patrick is a ghostwriter who gained a rather infamous reputation for a best selling but rather too revelatory autobiography of a famous footballer and on the strength of that and/or (in almost all aspects Patrick’s story has at least two alternatives) via an old friend with contacts, he is approached with a small fortune to write the memoirs of a Russian baby-oligarch Sergei Vanyashin. But a year ago Vanyashin, a head of an independent news channel critical of the Putin regime and who then sought asylum in Britain, was found hanged in what the authorities claim was a suicide – Patrick believes it was a Russian state-sponsored murder and more to the point believes the same forces are now tracking him down to kill him.
Robert initially dismisses Patrick as a fantasist – but his own curious researchers into Putin-regime murders on exiled dissidents (which mirror some of the author’s own for the novel) pique his curiosity and more to the point he realises that Patrick’s story (which he gradually picks up over a series of meetings – meetings at which Patrick’s paranoia only grows) is exactly the basis he needs to write his novel (not that he asks Patrick’s permission).
The most innovative part of the novel is that it segues between Robert’s thoughts and actions and his conversations with Patrick – to lengthy sections which rather than being Patrick’s reported speech, are actually Robert’s draft novel. The writing in these sections changes to a rather simplistic thriller style as Patrick describes the excesses of his encounters with Vanyashin and his entourage of enforcers and his young model girlfriend.
We also have sections written in a Swedish lakeside holiday home that Robert and Karijn own; and rather morose trip back to London for the viewing/wake of an old copywriter friend whose death by suicide seems tragic rather than mysterious – the trip I think only revealing more to Robert his lack of any genuine or deep connection with those around him.
All the while Robert starts to doubt that Patrick’s fears about being followed and targetted were as paranoid as he first thought or that he himself is entirely immune from danger by association.
The author’s twitter profile starts “European writer” and a couple of the blurbs (by Ben Myers and David Hayden – both coincidentally 2018 Republic of Consciousness longlisted when I was a judge) refer to the work as “European”. And that was my sense also – or perhaps more so that the novel is consciously non-English.
Berlin is almost a character in the novel and described with affection; the UK by contrast is either the grey down at heel surrounds of the wake; or the overly indulged super rich excesses (but then combined with official unwillingness to act in the face of Putin’s provocations) of Patrick’s tales. The book has something of the European spy thriller, something of the Scandi-crime thriller/Nordic Noir and also makes deliberate reference to Bolaño’s self-referential tales of crime and drugs (an author Robert likes enough to have taken a pilgrimage to the small Catalan beach town where the author lived out his last days) – again contrasting them implicitly with the self-indulgent reading given by the young English writer in the book’s opening scene.
Overall I found this novel an easy-to-read, engrossing, very competently executed novel (it certainly does not read like a debut by a short story writer) but one that is perhaps a little too self-referential (someone on a Goodreads group I subscribe to asked if writers could be banned for a year in having writers as main characters) and one that despite its interesting theme of Putin regime corruption lacked any real impact on me. And while the bleeding of Robert’s novel in progress into this novel was slightly innovative it does mean that a large chunk of the book is effectively a non-literary thriller.
My thanks to Faber and Faber Ltd for an ARC via NetGalley
Stories are like coins, Robert thought, passed from one hand to another. When you tell someone a story, you give it to them. Patrick and Vanyyashin; Caesar and the Aedui; Bolaño’s heroin addiction; Robert’s own piligramage to Blanes; some stories spread, others wither. He told himself what he was writing didn’t diminish Patrick’s experience; it was a tribute to it. If he couldn’t see that, it was unfortunate but it was his problem to solve.
Chris Power’s debut collection of short stories “Mothers” was well received, and the author has also carved out a niche for himself as an expert on the short story form with a regular “brief survey of the short story” column in the online Guardian. This is his debut novel.
And its protagonist is an English born writer – Robert, who has published a successful set of short stories but is now struggling badly for inspiration for the novel on which he has taken an advance. Robert, his Swedish wife Karijn and their two young daughters left London (taking advantage of the rise in London property prices – fueled of course at the top end by Russian oligarchs) for a new life in Berlin.
Robert in London was a copywriter but the property proceeds and book advance mean he is meant to be a full time writer – but while Karijn and the children settle quickly into Berlin, Robert’s rather self-pitying writer’s block (with perhaps an element of early-mid-life crisis) means he lacks a sense of belonging in the City, patience with his children and real connection with his rather embattled wife who at one point says “Write, don’t write but leave us out of the pity party. Can you do that? Can you be with us a little bit before you tell me, yet again, that your life is a disaster”
The book opens in a bookshop with he and another man reaching for the same book – we later find out Bolaño’s “Antwerp”). The other man identifies himself as a fellow writer before, rather the worse for drink, he disrupts a reading by a third author.
As an aside you will note the frequent references here in the opening scene to books and writing – this is a novel very self-consciously about writing.
When Robert and Karijn later save the same man – Patrick - from a drunken beating – Robert, struck by their similarities and keen to meet someone new, agrees to meet him. Immediately he is struck by the man’s mysterious manner and what, at first, strikes him as his rather implausible story.
Patrick is a ghostwriter who gained a rather infamous reputation for a best selling but rather too revelatory autobiography of a famous footballer and on the strength of that and/or (in almost all aspects Patrick’s story has at least two alternatives) via an old friend with contacts, he is approached with a small fortune to write the memoirs of a Russian baby-oligarch Sergei Vanyashin. But a year ago Vanyashin, a head of an independent news channel critical of the Putin regime and who then sought asylum in Britain, was found hanged in what the authorities claim was a suicide – Patrick believes it was a Russian state-sponsored murder and more to the point believes the same forces are now tracking him down to kill him.
Robert initially dismisses Patrick as a fantasist – but his own curious researchers into Putin-regime murders on exiled dissidents (which mirror some of the author’s own for the novel) pique his curiosity and more to the point he realises that Patrick’s story (which he gradually picks up over a series of meetings – meetings at which Patrick’s paranoia only grows) is exactly the basis he needs to write his novel (not that he asks Patrick’s permission).
The most innovative part of the novel is that it segues between Robert’s thoughts and actions and his conversations with Patrick – to lengthy sections which rather than being Patrick’s reported speech, are actually Robert’s draft novel. The writing in these sections changes to a rather simplistic thriller style as Patrick describes the excesses of his encounters with Vanyashin and his entourage of enforcers and his young model girlfriend.
We also have sections written in a Swedish lakeside holiday home that Robert and Karijn own; and rather morose trip back to London for the viewing/wake of an old copywriter friend whose death by suicide seems tragic rather than mysterious – the trip I think only revealing more to Robert his lack of any genuine or deep connection with those around him.
All the while Robert starts to doubt that Patrick’s fears about being followed and targetted were as paranoid as he first thought or that he himself is entirely immune from danger by association.
The author’s twitter profile starts “European writer” and a couple of the blurbs (by Ben Myers and David Hayden – both coincidentally 2018 Republic of Consciousness longlisted when I was a judge) refer to the work as “European”. And that was my sense also – or perhaps more so that the novel is consciously non-English.
Berlin is almost a character in the novel and described with affection; the UK by contrast is either the grey down at heel surrounds of the wake; or the overly indulged super rich excesses (but then combined with official unwillingness to act in the face of Putin’s provocations) of Patrick’s tales. The book has something of the European spy thriller, something of the Scandi-crime thriller/Nordic Noir and also makes deliberate reference to Bolaño’s self-referential tales of crime and drugs (an author Robert likes enough to have taken a pilgrimage to the small Catalan beach town where the author lived out his last days) – again contrasting them implicitly with the self-indulgent reading given by the young English writer in the book’s opening scene.
Overall I found this novel an easy-to-read, engrossing, very competently executed novel (it certainly does not read like a debut by a short story writer) but one that is perhaps a little too self-referential (someone on a Goodreads group I subscribe to asked if writers could be banned for a year in having writers as main characters) and one that despite its interesting theme of Putin regime corruption lacked any real impact on me. And while the bleeding of Robert’s novel in progress into this novel was slightly innovative it does mean that a large chunk of the book is effectively a non-literary thriller.
My thanks to Faber and Faber Ltd for an ARC via NetGalley
April 17, 2021
Robert is (cue hoary cliché) a stalled novelist with writer's block, a thirty-something Brit living in expat comfort with his Swedish wife and two cute daughters, in Berlin's bourgeois Prenzlauer Berg. He meets Patrick, a British ghostwriter who claims to be on the run from a shadowy Russian state intelligence network after an abortive project writing the memoirs of a second-tier Russian oligarch.
Totally entertaining and page-turning, even though I can't decide whether this is a thriller with literary pretensions or a literary novel appropriating elements of the thriller genre. Some sl0w-building tension and menace, and occasional shocking bits of violence, all of which would have been totally unremarkable in any Scandi Noir show from the early 2010s.
But the more literary elements were more effective here: evocative and atmospheric descriptions of Berlin's bleak wintry cityscape, depressing rainy old London, an austere Swedish lakeside cabin, and the trappings of billionaire Russian wealth offshore in mansions and stately homes. And especially the seamless transitions between the framing narrative, told by the first-person narrator, and the novel-within-the-novel, which he adapts from the (ostensibly) true story he's surreptitiously taping into what reads like a (deliberately) overwritten potboiler.
Thanks to FSG and Netgalley for a free ARC of this, in exchange for an honest review.
Totally entertaining and page-turning, even though I can't decide whether this is a thriller with literary pretensions or a literary novel appropriating elements of the thriller genre. Some sl0w-building tension and menace, and occasional shocking bits of violence, all of which would have been totally unremarkable in any Scandi Noir show from the early 2010s.
But the more literary elements were more effective here: evocative and atmospheric descriptions of Berlin's bleak wintry cityscape, depressing rainy old London, an austere Swedish lakeside cabin, and the trappings of billionaire Russian wealth offshore in mansions and stately homes. And especially the seamless transitions between the framing narrative, told by the first-person narrator, and the novel-within-the-novel, which he adapts from the (ostensibly) true story he's surreptitiously taping into what reads like a (deliberately) overwritten potboiler.
Thanks to FSG and Netgalley for a free ARC of this, in exchange for an honest review.
July 2, 2021
A subtle, character-driven, thriller? It's also a meditation on writing/art. Not for everyone, I guess, but, this book was certainly for me. I loved it and keep turning parts of it over in my head.
January 27, 2021
"A writer is only as good as his material, you agree?"
This is a thoughtful, intriguing novel - on one hand it reads like a homage to John le Carré (I also thought of You Were Never Really Here), and on the other hand it seems to be saying something about writing - the figure of the writer as vampire, as thief - and about the desire to escape, project, fantasise, escape, and obliterate. It's a clever idea for a novel - it has that thriller hook, but is also substantial in its thematic explorations. There's a nihilist streak in parts (specifically the MDMA outing, which is SOOO stressful to read!! My God, they must have felt AWFUL the next day!!) that reminded me of another 2021 book, Nightshift by Kiare Ladner, which is also narrated by a would-be writer who is craving freedom and escape from herself.
Some people might be like "oh it's so lazy to have a writer main character", which is fair. But I personally think it's a bit of a brave and risky choice, since it's a decision that is always going to inevitably get that criticism. I also think, for better or worse, a lot of people want to BE writers (and I find "being a writer" different from "wanting to write," but that's a different story). I think this is a useful desire to explore - why do so many of us want to BE someone else - to invent and construct fantasies? Why do so many people seem to want to BE writers, as opposed to readers? (And again, I distinguish "being a writer" - a public figure who is praised, admired - to "writing"!)
Anyway, I digress. Robert (the main character) is definitely someone who wants to be a writer - to be seen as a writer - but finds the actual writing quite difficult. In fact, he is finding it "increasingly difficult to provide the required level of positivity about anyone wanting to write anything - but he couldn't say no to the money." In the opening scene at a reading (which is deliciously satirical), he meets Patrick, a fellow British man and ghostwriter, who claims to be on the run from Russian oligarchs. And this is where the theme of writer-as-vampire comes in, as Robert decides to write Patrick's story for himself, something he's done in the past with previous fiction: "As far as he was concerned, the story had become his the moment she told him it."
There are some juicy Patricia Highsmith moments, as Robert experiences "the eerie thrill of secret watching" and the "exquisite thrill" of following Patrick throughout Berlin, which is well-evoked. Patrick's story is "told" to us via transcriptions from Robert's novel, and it's interesting that we never really know what is something Patrick told Robert, and what is Robert's embellishment. There are sojourns to Sweden, and a trip to London for a funeral. And Robert keeps working, keeps writing, imagining the success that Patrick's story will bring him: "He idly imagined being interviewed about the book and telling this story about it."
I will say there is a lot in the book about Russian oligarchs that I personally didn't find very interesting; it felt a bit too "reasearchy". I couldn't help but think of Trump, and that entire culture of criminality in which there is "no verifiable truth, just rival versions of reality."
I found the ending really good- chilling, even - with a deeply satisfying payoff. I was left with the feeling that what will happen to Robert next is inevitable, that he has written himself into a future from which there is now no escape. I also really liked the Chekhov-esque reflections that Robert has, about his purposeful construction of a secret double life:
"Over the last two months he felt as if another person had grown up inside him, a shadow-self whose existence she knew nothing about. It made him feel ashamed, but part of him remained curious and wondered if he had the ability to sustain it; to live a hidden life. He could do anything, provided he had the nerve to twist and distort as necessary and could live with the dishonesty."
Overall, a deeply enjoyable, gripping, and thought-provocative read that I read in a single sitting. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
This is a thoughtful, intriguing novel - on one hand it reads like a homage to John le Carré (I also thought of You Were Never Really Here), and on the other hand it seems to be saying something about writing - the figure of the writer as vampire, as thief - and about the desire to escape, project, fantasise, escape, and obliterate. It's a clever idea for a novel - it has that thriller hook, but is also substantial in its thematic explorations. There's a nihilist streak in parts (specifically the MDMA outing, which is SOOO stressful to read!! My God, they must have felt AWFUL the next day!!) that reminded me of another 2021 book, Nightshift by Kiare Ladner, which is also narrated by a would-be writer who is craving freedom and escape from herself.
Some people might be like "oh it's so lazy to have a writer main character", which is fair. But I personally think it's a bit of a brave and risky choice, since it's a decision that is always going to inevitably get that criticism. I also think, for better or worse, a lot of people want to BE writers (and I find "being a writer" different from "wanting to write," but that's a different story). I think this is a useful desire to explore - why do so many of us want to BE someone else - to invent and construct fantasies? Why do so many people seem to want to BE writers, as opposed to readers? (And again, I distinguish "being a writer" - a public figure who is praised, admired - to "writing"!)
Anyway, I digress. Robert (the main character) is definitely someone who wants to be a writer - to be seen as a writer - but finds the actual writing quite difficult. In fact, he is finding it "increasingly difficult to provide the required level of positivity about anyone wanting to write anything - but he couldn't say no to the money." In the opening scene at a reading (which is deliciously satirical), he meets Patrick, a fellow British man and ghostwriter, who claims to be on the run from Russian oligarchs. And this is where the theme of writer-as-vampire comes in, as Robert decides to write Patrick's story for himself, something he's done in the past with previous fiction: "As far as he was concerned, the story had become his the moment she told him it."
There are some juicy Patricia Highsmith moments, as Robert experiences "the eerie thrill of secret watching" and the "exquisite thrill" of following Patrick throughout Berlin, which is well-evoked. Patrick's story is "told" to us via transcriptions from Robert's novel, and it's interesting that we never really know what is something Patrick told Robert, and what is Robert's embellishment. There are sojourns to Sweden, and a trip to London for a funeral. And Robert keeps working, keeps writing, imagining the success that Patrick's story will bring him: "He idly imagined being interviewed about the book and telling this story about it."
I will say there is a lot in the book about Russian oligarchs that I personally didn't find very interesting; it felt a bit too "reasearchy". I couldn't help but think of Trump, and that entire culture of criminality in which there is "no verifiable truth, just rival versions of reality."
I found the ending really good- chilling, even - with a deeply satisfying payoff. I was left with the feeling that what will happen to Robert next is inevitable, that he has written himself into a future from which there is now no escape. I also really liked the Chekhov-esque reflections that Robert has, about his purposeful construction of a secret double life:
"Over the last two months he felt as if another person had grown up inside him, a shadow-self whose existence she knew nothing about. It made him feel ashamed, but part of him remained curious and wondered if he had the ability to sustain it; to live a hidden life. He could do anything, provided he had the nerve to twist and distort as necessary and could live with the dishonesty."
Overall, a deeply enjoyable, gripping, and thought-provocative read that I read in a single sitting. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
January 5, 2022
Whenever I read novels like 'A Lonely Man' by Chris Power, I feel a cultural gap between English literary writers and maybe general American literary readers like myself. It's in how long it takes for an author to reveal to a character and readers what is really happening in a literary novel, if knowingly self-discovered by the character, or not. Japanese novels are sometimes like this too - plots which carry on for hundreds of pages about unclear maybe dangers, unresolved puzzles, unexamined emotions, muddy conclusions. However, the characters persevere despite a lack of inner examination or understanding, a point being made by the more knowing author.
When I read The Sense of an Ending, a novel I was reminded of as I read 'A Lonely Man', I experienced a frustrated sense of there not being enough energy or meaning in the plot for me. This is of a type of book the English literati (as well as east-coast American literati) swooned over passionately. What the books have partially in common I think is they are about the characters' internal emotional space being revealed as supposedly shocking in some way to the character and is the biggest surprise to him in the novel. It might result in a feeling of vulnerability or confusion or sometimes straight-up fear in the character in these literary character studies. But often the emotion in some of these recent English literary novels is processed incompletely or remains beyond comprehension for the character, and sometimes the reader, and might result in nothing much being resolved or in having been judged as not important by the character ultimately, which is the lesson learned. Sometimes when any of the foregoing was the message, well, it's meh for me, sometimes.
These usually obtuse emotions (sometimes maybe they resonate with some readers) and uncertainly understood and maybe duplicitous motivations behind actions power forward some of the recent English literary plots I've read. At least it has in a few of the literary English novels full of educated characters or artists. This type of book often ends 300 pages later in a fog of mysteries never solved or not emotionally resolved by the last page, all action aborted and leading to a sound of a cricket, or perhaps meaningless or shallow (to me, anyway) revelations which leave me, gentle reader, wondering if I wasted my time reading a book about yet another modern Englishman unwilling or unable to fully crack open and challenge his inner demons.
'A Lonely Man' does have the unusual virtue for a literary (? - this book is in between a literary novel and a domestic slow-burner thriller it seems to me) English novel - the plot has an explosive resolution. Life becomes full of clarity to the main character. It takes 301 pages to arrive though. Imho, this novel should have been at most 200 pages. It would have had more energy. I finished it because all of the professional critics hinted there is a resolution to these beautifully written chapters of mostly domesticity, which at a point were seemingly endlessly going over and over the main character's journey of myopic self-centered ambition to write a Great Novel at the expense of other people. Unlike some other readers, I did not think the insertion of the main character Robert Prowe's draft novel into the main plot was smoothly done, either. I did like the subtle commentary/contrast on an author writing a fictionalized noir crime novel about the Russian robber barons created under Boris Yeltsin's administration ('as told by') and his 'real' life of family, kids, writing problems, and other general domestic issues. Robert was definitely not writing of what he knew.
I copied the cover blurb because it is accurate:
"Two British men, both writers, meet by chance in Berlin. Robert is trying and failing to finish his next book while balancing his responsibilities as a husband and father. Patrick, a recent arrival in the city, is secretive about his past, but eventually reveals he has been ghostwriting the autobiography of a Russian oligarch. The oligarch is now dead, and Patrick claims to be a hunted man himself.
Although Robert doubts the truth of Patrick's story, it fascinates him, and he thinks it might hold the key to his own foundering novel. Working to gain the other man's trust, Robert draws out the details of Patrick's past while ensnaring himself ever more tightly in what might be a fantasist's creation, or a devastating international plot.
Through an elegant, existential game of cat-and-mouse, Chris Power's A Lonely Man depicts an attempt to create art at the cost of empathy. Robert must decide what is his for the taking--and whether some stories are too dangerous to tell."
These English literary writers, or wannabes, or in-between genres like this novel, are writing as male characters who can only manage a single dimension of self-consciousness. Meanwhile, the character does go on to express beautiful poetic sentences or uses wonderful phrases that capture a child or a moment perfectly, or describe the physical landscape the characters are traveling over in a way readers can easily admire. (Women characters in novels are definitely more in touch with themselves, though, generally, even when the author who created the characters is male.)
American writers might prefer illustrating the same points in this novel with a dysfunctional domestic family and an evil boss when writing literary lit about writers, writing and their possible existential blindness or lack of empathy to real dangers and problems in real lives. In my personal opinion, Americans tend to use exaggeration to illustrate literary themes while the English tend to downplay, sometime too much downplaying, of plot points in illustrating literary themes. Imho.
When I read The Sense of an Ending, a novel I was reminded of as I read 'A Lonely Man', I experienced a frustrated sense of there not being enough energy or meaning in the plot for me. This is of a type of book the English literati (as well as east-coast American literati) swooned over passionately. What the books have partially in common I think is they are about the characters' internal emotional space being revealed as supposedly shocking in some way to the character and is the biggest surprise to him in the novel. It might result in a feeling of vulnerability or confusion or sometimes straight-up fear in the character in these literary character studies. But often the emotion in some of these recent English literary novels is processed incompletely or remains beyond comprehension for the character, and sometimes the reader, and might result in nothing much being resolved or in having been judged as not important by the character ultimately, which is the lesson learned. Sometimes when any of the foregoing was the message, well, it's meh for me, sometimes.
These usually obtuse emotions (sometimes maybe they resonate with some readers) and uncertainly understood and maybe duplicitous motivations behind actions power forward some of the recent English literary plots I've read. At least it has in a few of the literary English novels full of educated characters or artists. This type of book often ends 300 pages later in a fog of mysteries never solved or not emotionally resolved by the last page, all action aborted and leading to a sound of a cricket, or perhaps meaningless or shallow (to me, anyway) revelations which leave me, gentle reader, wondering if I wasted my time reading a book about yet another modern Englishman unwilling or unable to fully crack open and challenge his inner demons.
'A Lonely Man' does have the unusual virtue for a literary (? - this book is in between a literary novel and a domestic slow-burner thriller it seems to me) English novel - the plot has an explosive resolution. Life becomes full of clarity to the main character. It takes 301 pages to arrive though. Imho, this novel should have been at most 200 pages. It would have had more energy. I finished it because all of the professional critics hinted there is a resolution to these beautifully written chapters of mostly domesticity, which at a point were seemingly endlessly going over and over the main character's journey of myopic self-centered ambition to write a Great Novel at the expense of other people. Unlike some other readers, I did not think the insertion of the main character Robert Prowe's draft novel into the main plot was smoothly done, either. I did like the subtle commentary/contrast on an author writing a fictionalized noir crime novel about the Russian robber barons created under Boris Yeltsin's administration ('as told by') and his 'real' life of family, kids, writing problems, and other general domestic issues. Robert was definitely not writing of what he knew.
I copied the cover blurb because it is accurate:
"Two British men, both writers, meet by chance in Berlin. Robert is trying and failing to finish his next book while balancing his responsibilities as a husband and father. Patrick, a recent arrival in the city, is secretive about his past, but eventually reveals he has been ghostwriting the autobiography of a Russian oligarch. The oligarch is now dead, and Patrick claims to be a hunted man himself.
Although Robert doubts the truth of Patrick's story, it fascinates him, and he thinks it might hold the key to his own foundering novel. Working to gain the other man's trust, Robert draws out the details of Patrick's past while ensnaring himself ever more tightly in what might be a fantasist's creation, or a devastating international plot.
Through an elegant, existential game of cat-and-mouse, Chris Power's A Lonely Man depicts an attempt to create art at the cost of empathy. Robert must decide what is his for the taking--and whether some stories are too dangerous to tell."
These English literary writers, or wannabes, or in-between genres like this novel, are writing as male characters who can only manage a single dimension of self-consciousness. Meanwhile, the character does go on to express beautiful poetic sentences or uses wonderful phrases that capture a child or a moment perfectly, or describe the physical landscape the characters are traveling over in a way readers can easily admire. (Women characters in novels are definitely more in touch with themselves, though, generally, even when the author who created the characters is male.)
American writers might prefer illustrating the same points in this novel with a dysfunctional domestic family and an evil boss when writing literary lit about writers, writing and their possible existential blindness or lack of empathy to real dangers and problems in real lives. In my personal opinion, Americans tend to use exaggeration to illustrate literary themes while the English tend to downplay, sometime too much downplaying, of plot points in illustrating literary themes. Imho.
April 5, 2021
Quite a ride. The deliberate pacing at the beginning is deceptively lulling, after which the rollercoaster begins until the shattering climax. Robert's initial skepticism lends itself to the reader, and there is so much in the real world that the possibility of danger from a scary source is entirely plausible. Looking forward to more from this debut author.
January 29, 2021
I have to confess I didn’t get off to the best start with this book. This is for reasons entirely down to me and nothing to do with the book. You see, the main character in the book, Robert Prowe (shift the r to the end of the surname for a clue) is a writer with a collection of short stories behind him, one of which is about his family on a Greek holiday, who is currently writing his first novel. My immediate reaction is “Oh no, not another novel about writers and writing where the protagonist is a thinly veiled (or not so thinly, maybe) version of the author”. (The similarly named Richard Powers once wrote a novel in which an author called Richard Powers who had written the same first four books as, err, Richard Powers, was the protagonist, for example, but there are lots of other options to choose from).
That said, Chris Power has written a very readable story. I was amazed at how quickly the pages flew by and I comfortably read the whole 300+ page book in a single day (COVID lockdown helped a bit with this as I do have more reading time than normal at the moment).
In this story, Robert is in a bookshop and reaches for a book at the same time as another man who, it turns out, is also a writer. (What a lot of writers there are here). This man immediately goes on to disrupt a reading by another writer (see!) before leaving and being rescued by Robert and his wife from a brawl. Robert and the other man, Patrick, strike up an uneasy relationship and Robert becomes fascinated by the story Patrick tells him about Russian oligarchs and corruption. Robert sees fictionalising Patrick’s story as a way out of his writer’s block. He decides against asking Patrick’s permission for this which is another one of the writerly themes explored to a degree in the book.
As you might expect, Robert gradually gets sucked into Patrick’s story. And he becomes absorbed in his efforts to capture that story. Interestingly for the novel’s structure, the book segue’s seamlessly in and out of the story Robert is attempting to write. This doesn’t happen very often, though. Unfortunately, I don’t think Robert is, on this evidence, a very good writer and these bits of the book, despite being key to the plot of the story, feel somewhat lacklustre/cliched.
It’s an entertaining story to read. For a novel about people being trailed through cities, threatened by gangsters etc., it never generated any kind of tension for me. I enjoyed reading the book and, as I’ve said, the pages flew by really quickly, but, after a bit of a false start it never drew me in.
My thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.
That said, Chris Power has written a very readable story. I was amazed at how quickly the pages flew by and I comfortably read the whole 300+ page book in a single day (COVID lockdown helped a bit with this as I do have more reading time than normal at the moment).
In this story, Robert is in a bookshop and reaches for a book at the same time as another man who, it turns out, is also a writer. (What a lot of writers there are here). This man immediately goes on to disrupt a reading by another writer (see!) before leaving and being rescued by Robert and his wife from a brawl. Robert and the other man, Patrick, strike up an uneasy relationship and Robert becomes fascinated by the story Patrick tells him about Russian oligarchs and corruption. Robert sees fictionalising Patrick’s story as a way out of his writer’s block. He decides against asking Patrick’s permission for this which is another one of the writerly themes explored to a degree in the book.
As you might expect, Robert gradually gets sucked into Patrick’s story. And he becomes absorbed in his efforts to capture that story. Interestingly for the novel’s structure, the book segue’s seamlessly in and out of the story Robert is attempting to write. This doesn’t happen very often, though. Unfortunately, I don’t think Robert is, on this evidence, a very good writer and these bits of the book, despite being key to the plot of the story, feel somewhat lacklustre/cliched.
It’s an entertaining story to read. For a novel about people being trailed through cities, threatened by gangsters etc., it never generated any kind of tension for me. I enjoyed reading the book and, as I’ve said, the pages flew by really quickly, but, after a bit of a false start it never drew me in.
My thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.
November 19, 2021
I thought this a dud, so I was surprised to see the Washington Post and Kirkus both liked it and found it an atmospheric, tense, intelligent literary thriller. The writing was often bland, sometimes clunky, and at times would rise and levitate as if in a different novel, briefly impressed with itself, before deflating. Sometimes all the sentences in a paragraph began with "he." The protagonist (Robert, a writer) was unlikable (I know we're not supposed to care, but it can make a difference). His family life was dull, dull, dull, and he seemed an indifferent father, always complaining about his young children, until he felt endangered, then suddenly it was all hugs and cuddles. The plot involves Robert befriending the ghostwriter (Patrick) of the autobiography of a fictional expatriate anti-Putin oligarch living in England. There is lots of boring detail about the oligarch and his big houses and fancy, rowdy parties. Patrick tells Robert about actual Russian oligarchs or defectors like Berezovsky, Litvinenko, and Khodorkovsky, but this is boring too - I want to get my current events from Wikipedia, not novels.
Patrick is basically friendless, and Robert leads him on, inviting him for drinks again and again so he can milk him for his story which he finds so intriguing it is curing his writer's block and he's stealing it for a novel. Patrick finds out and is pissed. He's been telling Robert all along that people are following them, that their lives are in danger from Putin's thugs, which Robert finds ridiculous. There's a long interlude where a friend of Robert's commits suicide, he goes to England for the funeral, nearly cheats on his wife, and comes home to Berlin. I couldn't figure out the point of this. The friend hanged himself, and supposedly Patrick's oligarch did too, but that seemed too slight to connect the interlude with the rest of the novel. Lots of heavy drinking, endless hangovers, Robert and Patrick and essentially every other character except Robert's wife and small children are constantly sloshed, which I always find exceedingly tedious.
At the end you do find out whether Robert and/or Patrick are being followed, whether their lives are in danger. But it still ends on an unsatisfactory note, unclimaxed.
May 3, 2023
A nice literary thriller.
It was always a pleasure to read and I enjoyed the atmosphere of Berlin that he created (and London, and rural Sweden), but the ending left me a bit cold.
The story asks a lot of great questions about stories, who owns them, who gets to tell them. I kept thinking about that old black and white CBC clip where they let a Hells Angel drive his motorcycle on stage and confront Hunter S Thompson about profiting off of their gangster brand in his book about them. Trust me, it's worth watching. You don't have to believe gangsters' bullshit much less let them profit from it, but at what point does it unfair to assign them fictional crimes, even if they're the sort of crimes they would carry out? It's something I've been thinking a lot about recently in regards to how Russians are portrayed in media.
Will definitely be checking out Power's book of short stories.
It was always a pleasure to read and I enjoyed the atmosphere of Berlin that he created (and London, and rural Sweden), but the ending left me a bit cold.
The story asks a lot of great questions about stories, who owns them, who gets to tell them. I kept thinking about that old black and white CBC clip where they let a Hells Angel drive his motorcycle on stage and confront Hunter S Thompson about profiting off of their gangster brand in his book about them. Trust me, it's worth watching. You don't have to believe gangsters' bullshit much less let them profit from it, but at what point does it unfair to assign them fictional crimes, even if they're the sort of crimes they would carry out? It's something I've been thinking a lot about recently in regards to how Russians are portrayed in media.
Will definitely be checking out Power's book of short stories.
April 19, 2021
Every so often a book comes along whose narrative style just fits so well within your brain grooves that things that normally draw you in don’t seem to matter much anymore. This was very much the case with this book for me. This book, that had spy themes I usually don’t go for and a fairly dislikable protagonist, managed to really engage me on a pretty profound level.
Maybe it’s something to do with isolation, since this is the perfect time for such a thing. Or loneliness, which is universal and separate from politics. This book features not one, but several lonely men, though lonely on different levels. Each one meeting the other seemingly at random and each one’s life is forever changes because of it.
It starts off with two men casually reaching for the same book at a bookstore, which is pretty much a near perfect way to meet someone. One of them is drunk, one of them is there for a book reading, their interaction is brief, meaningless and would have been instantly forgotten, had it not continued almost immediately afterwards with one of them being attacked and the other coming to his rescue. Thus a connection is established.
Both men are British, both are strangers in Berlin, though to different degrees. One of them is an author desperately trying and failing to write a follow up to his published and fairly well received short story collection. The other has a story to tell, a wild story about being contacted as a ghost writer for an exiled oligarch.
Soon the lines between fiction and reality begin to be erased, a pervasive paranoia seeped through from one man to the other, mingled with distrust and a mutual need for company, albeit for different reasons. It turns into an exploitative relationship, but also strangely symbiotic. There’s no question that the protagonist is the one doing the exploiting, appropriating someone’s story for his own gain, and yet, immoral as that may be, it makes for a strangely compelling journey into darkness.
There’s a fascinatingly serpentine quality to it all or maybe, more appropriately, a nesting doll motif. Chris Power himself is a British author for whom this book is a sophomore effort after a well received short story collection. It’s a story within a story within a story. It’s clever and oddly magnetic of a construct.
And the writing…well, it’s great. The internationally set story displays a terrific ability to convey the place every time, be it the rainy London, bleak graffitied Berlin or tranquil isolation of Sweden. Every location provides a perfect stage for the characters’ development, contributing to or echoing their state of mind, every one is their own way a place of loneliness, not aloneness but a certain disconnect with the world around. It works excellently.
There’s plenty of suspense too, but this isn’t exactly a thriller in a traditional way, more of a darkly psychological game for two with danger potentially lurking around the corner.
I enjoyed this book very much, it read quickly so I didn’t have to put it down too much, two sittings really and well worth the time. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
Maybe it’s something to do with isolation, since this is the perfect time for such a thing. Or loneliness, which is universal and separate from politics. This book features not one, but several lonely men, though lonely on different levels. Each one meeting the other seemingly at random and each one’s life is forever changes because of it.
It starts off with two men casually reaching for the same book at a bookstore, which is pretty much a near perfect way to meet someone. One of them is drunk, one of them is there for a book reading, their interaction is brief, meaningless and would have been instantly forgotten, had it not continued almost immediately afterwards with one of them being attacked and the other coming to his rescue. Thus a connection is established.
Both men are British, both are strangers in Berlin, though to different degrees. One of them is an author desperately trying and failing to write a follow up to his published and fairly well received short story collection. The other has a story to tell, a wild story about being contacted as a ghost writer for an exiled oligarch.
Soon the lines between fiction and reality begin to be erased, a pervasive paranoia seeped through from one man to the other, mingled with distrust and a mutual need for company, albeit for different reasons. It turns into an exploitative relationship, but also strangely symbiotic. There’s no question that the protagonist is the one doing the exploiting, appropriating someone’s story for his own gain, and yet, immoral as that may be, it makes for a strangely compelling journey into darkness.
There’s a fascinatingly serpentine quality to it all or maybe, more appropriately, a nesting doll motif. Chris Power himself is a British author for whom this book is a sophomore effort after a well received short story collection. It’s a story within a story within a story. It’s clever and oddly magnetic of a construct.
And the writing…well, it’s great. The internationally set story displays a terrific ability to convey the place every time, be it the rainy London, bleak graffitied Berlin or tranquil isolation of Sweden. Every location provides a perfect stage for the characters’ development, contributing to or echoing their state of mind, every one is their own way a place of loneliness, not aloneness but a certain disconnect with the world around. It works excellently.
There’s plenty of suspense too, but this isn’t exactly a thriller in a traditional way, more of a darkly psychological game for two with danger potentially lurking around the corner.
I enjoyed this book very much, it read quickly so I didn’t have to put it down too much, two sittings really and well worth the time. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/
February 24, 2021
This was a really good read. Atmospheric, tense and full of intrigue. It is, on one hand, something of a spy thriller (I hesitate to use the phrase as it's hardly Le Carre but it's the best I can come up with) but also muses in different ways on parenthood, success, the role of writers and the ownership of stories. Very enjoyable and highly readable.
September 18, 2022
There's a thriller plot involving Russian oligarchs and their seemingly infinite power and reach which is often sidelined in favour of describing passing moments, or an MDMA trip or streets, woods, people - this may frustrate some who want to get on with the 'story', but for me this was the story. I enjoyed it greatly. For example in a passage which has no relevance to the plot the protagonist meets a woman at a funeral, and they end up getting drunk together and - 'As their mouths moved together, Robert heard the rumble and gasp of a truck and the wasp like drone of a scooter; he heard a woman repeating the words, 'Got no credit', as she passed by; he heard the rasp of a lighter's wheel.' Gasp, wasp, rasp. Anyway, some will like and some won't.
Great on place too - Berlin (in general), London (oligarch's mansions), Sweden (lakeside). And a lot about writing - not one but two writers are the main characters - whether we can steal other people's stories, and the frustrations and highs.
Great on place too - Berlin (in general), London (oligarch's mansions), Sweden (lakeside). And a lot about writing - not one but two writers are the main characters - whether we can steal other people's stories, and the frustrations and highs.
February 15, 2021
This one is Chris Power's debut novel & he has published a collection of stories before. The protagonist of this novel is Robert Prowe, he's also a writer with a published collection of stories struggling to write a novel. You will be forgiven for believing that this is yet another book about writers and writing, whose main protagonist is a thinly veiled stand-in for the author himself because, on many levels, it is exactly that. Power however plays with this old and overdone idea by deftly blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, creator and creation, story and subject. Prowe is working on the same book as Power, but the former has a lesser degree of separation. So the Russian oligarch Vanyashin's story gets mediated by Patrick and Patrick's narrative gets mediated by Robert which in turn is mediated by Chris. The reader is at a loss about what to accept as truth, what to interrogate.
From Vanyashin to Patrick to Robert, its title is applicable to all three of them but who is it actually meant for? The novel shifts from literary fiction to a standard thriller as Robert's work-in-progress bleeds onto the page, substituting and hijacking Patrick's narration of the events surrounding Vanyashin. In the end, it was easily readable & interesting but the book sadly did not leave much of an impact. It also visibly lacked tension & felt muddled. All the scenes of mundane domesticity were dull. I don't think it subverted common tropes enough ultimately.
(I received a physical proof copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
From Vanyashin to Patrick to Robert, its title is applicable to all three of them but who is it actually meant for? The novel shifts from literary fiction to a standard thriller as Robert's work-in-progress bleeds onto the page, substituting and hijacking Patrick's narration of the events surrounding Vanyashin. In the end, it was easily readable & interesting but the book sadly did not leave much of an impact. It also visibly lacked tension & felt muddled. All the scenes of mundane domesticity were dull. I don't think it subverted common tropes enough ultimately.
(I received a physical proof copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
June 27, 2021
A typical 3,5 stars - interesting but not very special novel about a struggling writer stealing someone else's story about the murder of a Russian oligarch. I was repeatedly reminded of Robert Harris (who has better plots) and Hari Kunzru (who is a better writer). For a thriller it was not exciting enough and a bit slow, for a work of literary fiction it was alright, not great. Still, I wasn't bored and curious for the ending...
April 25, 2022
I don’t profess to be knowledgeable about “thriller” fiction. John le Carre is referenced in the blurb for Chris Power’s debut novel, and I assume that he is the yardstick by which to measure this sample of the genre. As a novice reader of suspense writing, my interest was sustained throughout, though I’m not sure to what extent the sense of foreboding which builds as the novel continues is well crafted compared to Power’s thriller peers.
What did strike me, though, was that I found the part of the book that was the most dynamic didn’t involve shady characters, subterfuge, or threat. It was the segment that was set in a Wetherspoon’s pub in London, following a funeral. Robert Prowe, had come across as a buttoned up, contemplative, writer, but a wilder, hard drinking side emerged in the company of Molly. She is a less knowable character than dutiful, and loving, wife Karijn who I found rather was rather bland.
I read the book as the Putin driven war in Ukraine is centre of the world’s news. So Power’s book, centred on Russia, and spies and agents across Europe doing Putin’s work, is timely and prescient. A character reflects on the destabilisation being managed by the Putin government “Even after Putin went into Crimea nothing happened” (36).
A number of Russian ‘oligarchs’ and political figures of the last twenty years (and going back in time to Gorbachev’s perestroika), are mentioned in the novel. Power’s interest in this field, and its incorporation into the narrative didn’t manage the bridge between fiction and chunks of non-fiction especially well. It was no surprise to me when I read the acknowledgements at the end of the book and recognised a selection of the best known non-fiction books on Russian spies were sources for A Lonely Man. Included is Catherine Belton’s Putin’s People which has been a huge best seller since February 2022, and is a better place to read about the emergence of the Russian business mafia.
Chris Power is renowned for his short stories (and his journalism as reviewer and interviewer). I hope his next full length novel is less auto fiction and more fantasy.
What did strike me, though, was that I found the part of the book that was the most dynamic didn’t involve shady characters, subterfuge, or threat. It was the segment that was set in a Wetherspoon’s pub in London, following a funeral. Robert Prowe, had come across as a buttoned up, contemplative, writer, but a wilder, hard drinking side emerged in the company of Molly. She is a less knowable character than dutiful, and loving, wife Karijn who I found rather was rather bland.
I read the book as the Putin driven war in Ukraine is centre of the world’s news. So Power’s book, centred on Russia, and spies and agents across Europe doing Putin’s work, is timely and prescient. A character reflects on the destabilisation being managed by the Putin government “Even after Putin went into Crimea nothing happened” (36).
A number of Russian ‘oligarchs’ and political figures of the last twenty years (and going back in time to Gorbachev’s perestroika), are mentioned in the novel. Power’s interest in this field, and its incorporation into the narrative didn’t manage the bridge between fiction and chunks of non-fiction especially well. It was no surprise to me when I read the acknowledgements at the end of the book and recognised a selection of the best known non-fiction books on Russian spies were sources for A Lonely Man. Included is Catherine Belton’s Putin’s People which has been a huge best seller since February 2022, and is a better place to read about the emergence of the Russian business mafia.
Chris Power is renowned for his short stories (and his journalism as reviewer and interviewer). I hope his next full length novel is less auto fiction and more fantasy.
July 2, 2021
Robert Prowe is a Brit living in Berlin with his Swedish wife and two young daughters (apparently true of the author too), and is a fiction writer with one story collection published (true of the author) and no inspiration for the first novel he's supposed to be writing, and one night in a bookstore, he and a drunk man reach for the same book, ostensibly, an original of Treasure Island. The drunk man is Patrick Unsworth, a fellow Brit, who says he's also a writer. Later that night, Robert and his wife save Patrick from a worse beating than he's already received from men in the pub where he was drinking. When Robert reluctantly accepts Patrick's invitation for thank you drinks and dinner, Patrick tells him a little of his story, that he's a ghostwriter, hired by a Russian oligarch turned critic of Putin who was recently found hanged. Is Patrick paranoid, delusional? Are big Russians really following him? What is a fiction writer lacking inspiration to do? Perhaps feign friendship with Patrick to hear more of his story, to use for his own purposes? Do stories draw power from reality or imagination? Who owns stories? Who gets to control any narrative? A cool, noir-ish story, written with clarity and restraint.
July 26, 2021
My reading experience was more negative than the 4 starts I'm giving this novel but I blame the marketing for that. This is a literary novel and most definitely not a thriller.
A thriller, roughly speaking, has three parts: disturbing hints, the threat proper, and the resolution. This novel is pretty much stuck in disturbing hints all the way through. I was literally 15 pages from the end and wondering when the shadowy evil thuggish bad guys would show themselves. The ending we're given is, by genre definitions, no ending at all.
The book has its virtues, though. Lots of true-to-life scenes and dialog. Lots of interesting observations about the neuroticisms of the artist's life had how they clash with domestic tranquility. The prose is slick and slides by fast; there's no exasperating ambiguity here, despite some experimental shifts of point of view unlike anything I've ever seen before.
Just don't call it a thriller. Just stop with that nonsense.
A thriller, roughly speaking, has three parts: disturbing hints, the threat proper, and the resolution. This novel is pretty much stuck in disturbing hints all the way through. I was literally 15 pages from the end and wondering when the shadowy evil thuggish bad guys would show themselves. The ending we're given is, by genre definitions, no ending at all.
The book has its virtues, though. Lots of true-to-life scenes and dialog. Lots of interesting observations about the neuroticisms of the artist's life had how they clash with domestic tranquility. The prose is slick and slides by fast; there's no exasperating ambiguity here, despite some experimental shifts of point of view unlike anything I've ever seen before.
Just don't call it a thriller. Just stop with that nonsense.
April 22, 2023
Really enjoyed actually, is engaging and tense but also with more complex layers than a normal thriller. Good poolside read I reckon.
June 4, 2021
This book is dubbed as a "literary thriller" whatever that means. In my opinion it's not literary, nor a thriller. I read half of it, 150 pages out of 300 and barely anything happens. The writing is flat and boring. Initially two men meet accident, one is the protagonist, a writer suffering from writers block and a shady character followed by the Russian mob. Then nothing: the protagonist goes to his vacation home, takes a walk in the forest, chats with his neighbor, is annoyed by his own kids then he decides (around page 100) he must write that guys story because he's past his deadline with the book. This novel is a brilliant example of bad writing: chapters that do not advance the story, tell and not show, boring, boring, boring. I have up reaching page 150 and nothing happens.
December 16, 2022
Okay, if I had liked Robert it would have been five stars!
November 10, 2021
Two British men meet at a writers’ talk in Berlin and fall into a kind of friendship. Patrick tells Robert (our protagonist) that he had ghost-written a book for a Russian oligarch, now dead, maybe by suicide, bit Patrick thinks maybe he was killed by Putin’s henchmen, and now they’re looking for Patrick. Robert doesn’t know if he believes this, but he’s been desperately looking for a plot for his next book and this sounds to him as if it has potential. So he starts trying to squeeze more details out of Patrick, while pretending he’s just offering a friendly ear. But is Patrick a fantasist, or is there real danger? This starts out well and then loses its way in the middle, and the rather silly ending destroys any remaining feeling of ambiguity. However, the basic writing skills are all there and I’d read another by him to see if he improves in terms of plotting.
January 1, 2025
A bit of a background noise audiobook to give me company while doing a few things around the house in this early part of the year, nothing earth shattering, nothing offensive. Just a bit of interesting listening.
September 22, 2022
3 and a half for this one. It starts well only to evaporate in the middle. The writing drew me in throughout: sturdy and unflashy, its few metaphors quietly effective and matter of fact. The children are extremely well-drawn in particular.
Perhaps owes something to Robert Harris’ The Ghost.
Perhaps owes something to Robert Harris’ The Ghost.
March 5, 2021
I've never had a problem with books-about-writers, books-about-writing, books-about-writers-traveling-through-Europe-reflecting-on-their-craft. There are a lot of them that I can think of that I really loved. But for me the start of this was really slow. I don't want to say it was boring but it also wasn't not boring. By the time it picks up though, it is so tense and so anxiety-inducing. So what started out not my favorite ended up being a *wildly* stressful book that I enjoyed a lot and that I think is going to linger in my brain.
April 24, 2021
4/23/2021 3.5 stars rounded up mainly because of an excellent observation about city life vs rural life. Full review tk at CriminalElement.com.
June 27, 2022
A perplexed thriller that is as hesitant as its main character. Never quite gets going, and the platter of characters presented are only just developed enough to string you along. Engaging enough, if only as you try to untangle the layers of unreliable narrators and their flaws.
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