Juan’s Reviews > Lights Out: A Novel > Status Update

“He heard Paz grunt. Then the pink, plump hand swung up into his view; the pink, plump hand now spattered with blood. In the manicured fingers dangled a little pouchlike object Eddie couldn’t identify at first. And then he did: it was [his] severed scrotum, with testicles still inside.”

Excerpt From
Lights Out
Peter Abrahams

Well, things took a turn for the worst.

This is the writing I have to deal with. “He wanted to dance with Sookray, but more than that he wanted to dance.
Eddie and the woman went up on the battlements and danced. He forgot about Sookray.”

Closing in on the end of the first act. I went into this book somewhat blind. It was on Stephen King’s recommended reading list in On Writing, Peter Abrahams is one of his favorite writers. Having said that, I don’t know much more about this book. Is it a thriller, suspense, romance? So now at this point a plot is developing with the introduction of an adversary (?).

Spoilers ahead...Eddie sleeps with the boss’s girl; Eddie gets caught by the boss because no one locks their cabin doors, boss freaks out and gets in the Jeep and shoots at them with a rifle (in front of his investors and his wife is nearby), Eddie and the girl make an escape on the boat, boat gets pulled over by authorities and they find a lot of pot on the boat. So I guess this is why he goes to jail for 15 years.

Now we are in full flashback mode, for the last few chapters. Eddie dives into the pool and we’ve gone back 15 years prior to when he spent a summer in the Caribbean island. Is this going to turn into a bodice ripper?

Still on the first act so it’s a lot of flashbacks on Eddie as he wanders through his old hometown after getting out of prison.

I’m picturing Stone Cold Steve Austin as the protagonist, “He saw what everyone else must see: the shaven skull, the pale skin, and eyes they probably didn’t like the look of; superficially nice, but their expression was cold, wary, hostile.”

I picked up this book because Stephen King had listed it as a favorite on his reading list from In Writing. I can see why, the style is very much like his.