As a graduate student in upstate New York, Nathaniel Mason is drawn into a tangle of relationships with people who seem to hover just beyond his grasp. There's Theresa, alluring but elusive, and Jamie, who is fickle if not wholly unavailable. But Jerome Coolberg is the most mysterious and compelling. Not only cryptic about himself, he seems also to have appropriated parts of Nathaniel's past that Nathaniel cannot remember having told him about. In this extraordinary novel of mischief and menace, we see a young man's very self vanishing before his eyes.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
Not for Me:
This is a surreal and fantasy-ridden tale that left me cold. Not much in the way of suspense, reality or character development. Can't really recommend it to fiction lovers.
Too 'clever' by half:
Nathaniel Mason, a grad student in Buffalo, NY, in the 1970s, meets two emotionally unattractive and even vaguely repulsive people at a drink and drug fueled party one night, and the main narrative springs from there. Theresa enchants him with her free spirited ways, and Jerome Coolberg fascinates him too, even though Nathaniel "experiences wanly the need for quiet and sincerity, some antidote to cleverness." (So do I, Nathaniel, so do I.) Nathaniel does find some sincerity in his relationship with a fellow... more info
A Problem of Identity:
Readers who enjoy metafiction, fiction that is about storytelling itself, will have more than a little fun pondering Charles Baxter's newest novel. This is not his first book to call attention to the circumstances of its own creation. A Feast of Love begins with, guess who, Baxter himself out for a late-night walk while trying to get his next novel started. He comes upon a friend who suggests the title and the content of the first chapter. In The Soul Thief, things are more kinky. The story starts with the... more info
Puzzling:
I like the flow of the story and how it tried to be unique and interesting, but in the end it confused me more then anything. Is it telling us we all grow up at some point, become adults and essentially become different people? Is it trying to convey deeper images and feelings meant to enlighten us? Just not sure how to take it. Otherwise not a bad read, it just leaves me hanging, maybe that's better then being spoon-fed what I'm suppose to get out of it.
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