• A CHild Across the sky•
Weber Gregston and Philip Strayhorn are best friends. They were at college together; they struggle as nobodies in Hollywood together. Weber soon becomes the most acclaimed director of his generation. Phil is unrecognised for years, and then makes a series of notorious horror films. He has everything; love, fame, money.
Then he takes a gun and blows his head off. Why? Weber hopes the answer is on the video tapes that Phil has left him. But when he plays them, he finds messages from beyond the grave. Step by step, Weber learns that the evil Phil portrayed in his last film is not just slasher gore. He has created something which threatens his friends' lives. And if Weber doesn't put it right, and fast, that evil will extend far beyond a handful of people in Hollywood.
Exploring love and cruelty, creation and ambition, A Child Across the Sky is a brilliant tale of wonder and fear. It is also one of the most important novels of fantastic fiction in recent years.
• Reviews •
"A unique blend of horror, fantasy and reality. Reading Jonathan Carroll is like dreaming with your eyes open" – Lisa Tuttle
This zooms into the Number One slot as my choice for novel of the year. It's the sort of book which doesn't deserve to be pigeonholed in any particular genre. It's about the sinister legacy of an exploitation film director who has blown his brains out shortly before the book begins. His best friend Weber Gregston is left with video recordings which alter mysteriously, an unfinished slasher film, and a little girl who might or might not be a malevolent supernatural being. Carroll is an American living in Vienna; if he had a three part Spanish-sounding name and lived in Latin America he would probably be called a Magical realist. Read him now. – TIME OUT, London