bones of the moon
black cocktail
a child across the sky
outside the dog museum
the panic hand
kissing the beehive
the land of laughs
the marriage of sticks
from the teeth of angels
sleeping in flame
voice of our shadow
Jonathan
Carroll is no longer just a cult author. His previous novel,
After Silence, Placed this gifted and award-winning writer
squarely in the mainstream. The San Francisco Chronicle
raved, "After Silence is filled with people who feel as real
as one's closest friends, observed with a penetrating, and
sometimes brutally chilling, clarity ... a taut, original
work whose excellence fulfills the promises made by this
remarkable author over the last dozen years." In From the
Teeth of Angels, Jonathan Carroll returns to that unique
literary landscape that he paves with magic and
wonder.
While vacationing in Sardinia, Ian McGann meets Death in a dream. Death promises to answer any of McGann's questions, but if he fails to understand the answers, he will have to pay with his life.
In Los Angeles, successful film actress Arlen Ford is no longer happy living in the Hollywood fast lane. She gives up everything-her career, her house, her glam orous lifestyle-and moves to Austria, where she meets a passionate war correspondent. From the start, their relationship is all-consuming. Arlen realizes she has been waiting for this man all her life.
And in Vienna, the terminally ill Wyatt Leonard suddenly discovers that he has the ability to raise the dead.
How all three of these extraordinary fates converge is at the heart of Jonathan Carroll's most daring and provocative novel, in which he dares to ask-and answer-the ultimate question: What is Death?
[ Reviews ]
From Kirkus Reviews , 02/01/93:
Carroll joins the mainstream with a romantic suspense novel quite unlike his usual slippery surrealism (Outside the Dog Museum, 1991; A Child Across the Sky, 1990, etc.) and delivers what is pretty much a winner. Carroll's US cult following is limited, but his work is heralded and esteemed in Europe for its avant-garde qualities (he lives in Vienna). What carries the day for him here are characters that really grip you, and straightahead storytelling that should bring him a new batch of stateside readers. His hero is Max Fischer (perhaps a play on Hollywood animator Max Fleischer), a famed L.A. cartoonist whose main character is Paper Clip, a talking paper clip that makes eccentric comments about the realistic parts of his panels. Unmarried at 37, Max falls for Lily Aaron, a widow with a bright nine-year-old son, Lincoln. Lily loves waitressing in an oddball L.A. restaurant, and her dead-on honesty attracts Max, who finally marries her. But he finds that her honesty has its hidden neurotic side, which prompts him to hire a friendly female detective to look into Lily's background. The results lead to very upsetting facts: Lily not only was never married, and has invented her dead ex-husband, but she also kidnapped Lincoln as a small baby and has raised him as her own. Why? Because an early miscarriage left her unable to bear children, although not infertile. Max flies to New Jersey and meets (he thinks) Lincoln's lost parents, but decides to go along with Lily and keep Lincoln as his stepson. Years pass and wonderful, brilliant Lincoln grows into a jackbooted psychotic who hates Max and Lily and is ready to kill.... Strong throughout, though the story's hairpinning into suspense feels forced. Still, honest Lily's best pages run deep-- and this is Carroll's most readable ever.
"Fantasy, detective story, tragic-comic tale of love and contemporary life in LA, After Silenceis all of these and more. Always an inventive and exciting writer, and one who defies neat classifications, Carroll has excelled himself here with a truly spellbounding story."--Sunday Times
"A neat exercise in domestic horror...Carroll's ability to milk the situation for menace and pathos exceeds even Swift's and McEwan's."--Independent on Sunday
"After Silence is terrifying, compelling reading--the only thing harder than putting it down is forgetting it after the last page has been turned."--Stephen King
"Carroll tells the story with all the marvellous skill that has made his books so enjoyable. Carroll's novels have always transcended generic boundaries--strange, wonderful blends of dark fantasy and magical realism."--Time Out
"Carroll delivers seamless storytelling, comic anecdotes and funny, likeable characters, and weaves them all into a wrenching tale of tragic inevitability."--The Times
