Glister
John Burnside
Glister
The children of Innertown exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their school disappears, vanishing into the wasteland of the old chemical plant. Nobody knows where these boys go, or whether they are alive or dead, and without evidence the authorities claim they are simply runaways. The town policeman, Morrison knows otherwise. He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and he believes all the boys have been killed. Though he is seriously compromised, he would still like to find out the killer's identity. The local children also want to know and, in their fear and frustration, they turn on Rivers, a sad fantasist and suspected paedophile living alone at the edge of the wasteland.Trapped and frightened, one of the boys, Leonard, tries to escape, taking refuge in the poisoned ruins of the old plant; there he finds another boy, who might be the missing Liam and might be a figment of his imagination. With his help, Leonard comes to understand the policeman's involvement, and exacts the necessary revenge - before following Liam into the Glister: possibly a disused chemical weapons facility, possibly a passage to the outer world.
4.8 out of 5 based on 4 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
272 |
| RRP |
£15.99 |
| Date of Publication |
May 2008 |
| ISBN |
978-0224080743 |
| Publisher |
Jonathan Cape |
| |
The children of Innertown exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their school disappears, vanishing into the wasteland of the old chemical plant. Nobody knows where these boys go, or whether they are alive or dead, and without evidence the authorities claim they are simply runaways. The town policeman, Morrison knows otherwise. He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and he believes all the boys have been killed. Though he is seriously compromised, he would still like to find out the killer's identity. The local children also want to know and, in their fear and frustration, they turn on Rivers, a sad fantasist and suspected paedophile living alone at the edge of the wasteland.Trapped and frightened, one of the boys, Leonard, tries to escape, taking refuge in the poisoned ruins of the old plant; there he finds another boy, who might be the missing Liam and might be a figment of his imagination. With his help, Leonard comes to understand the policeman's involvement, and exacts the necessary revenge - before following Liam into the Glister: possibly a disused chemical weapons facility, possibly a passage to the outer world.
Reviews
The Guardian
Irvine Welsh
“...one of the most original and exhilarating reads of the year. Continually subverting reader expectations... this sophisticated tale becomes a deliberation on post-industrialisation, the nature of storytelling and the darker extremities of human psychological experience... a beautiful book, by turns beguiling, sinister, playful and never less than mesmerisin... this book will haunt you long after the last dozen or so police procedurals have been dumped in the local charity shop... an exceptionally rich treasure which goes beyond telling a disconcerting and disorienting story to illuminate the infinite possibilities of the novel.”
17/05/2008
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The Observer
Euan Ferguson
“...astonishing... one of the most grim but enduring landscapes committed to print in recent years... Burnside has just taken harsh post-industrial reality and blessed it with a bizarre sense of beauty... By the end, you're reading Glister like a thriller, eating up the pages; snared in a story, in lives, more visual than most films... we are being given a journey, and sights, and sounds, and what a marvellous journey it is, an agglomeration which builds and sticks, like molasses and leaves a long aftertaste. Glister is a powerful, mesmerising experience.”
24/04/2009
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The Sunday Times
Nick Rennison
“Burnside is no stranger to the notion that less equals more. In Glister, he brings his powers of pared-down narration to bear on a tale of dereliction, loss and possible redemption... Burnside's story employs suggestion and ambiguity rather than explicit statement, but it has the power that comes from leaving plenty of space in which the reader's own imagination can go to work.”
13/07/2008
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The Independent
Simon Kovesi
“...a taughtly drawn crime novel, a mystery novel and a horror novel in one... The world of this chilling novel is steeped in a nature so finely drawn that it aches with its pulsing, crippled mortality... a novel of ecology, of a lyrical comprehension of the breath and breadth of nature. It confirms that, all too quickly, nature's lungs can clog into a choking wheeze... more broadly directed at the amoral irresponsibilities of big business in its abuse of nature. Even more effectively, it points to the secret abuses of the environment carried out by us all.”
05/06/2008
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