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14th out of 41 books
—
32 voters
Generation Loss (Cass Neary #1)
"Startling, unclassifiable. . . Full of mysteries -- all originating in its characters' troubled psyches -- and full of terrors that can't be explained."--New York Times
Shirley Jackson Award winner.
Praise for Elizabeth Hand's previous novels:
"Inhabits a world between reason and insanity--it's a delightful waking dream."--People
"One of the most sheerly impressive, not to me...more
Shirley Jackson Award winner.
Praise for Elizabeth Hand's previous novels:
"Inhabits a world between reason and insanity--it's a delightful waking dream."--People
"One of the most sheerly impressive, not to me...more
Hardcover, 265 pages
Published
April 1st 2007
by Small Beer Press
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Had I read Elizabeth Hand's work before, I might have been very surprised at this book. When I met Elizabeth this past summer and expressed my praise for such a wonderful book, she expressed some doubt if I would like her other work as it was more standard fantasy. It was only later in a seminar about the experience of writing the book that I got a deeper glimpse into her reasoning: She hated writing this book.
I can see why. "Generation Loss" is as disturbingly beautiful as the photography the p...more
I can see why. "Generation Loss" is as disturbingly beautiful as the photography the p...more
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I don't know how to feel about this book. I don't feel objective, which is funny given how much Generation Loss is about the intersection of art and consumer. As a love letter for Maine isolated weirdness that people from Away don't get to see, it's amazing. (Content warning: I talk about rape behind the cut.) (view spoiler)...more
I first started reading Elizabeth Hand's books in the mid 90's. I've always had a hard time exactly describing my response to her books. Her early works (the books I read in the mid 90's) were EXTREMELY dark post-apocalyptic science fiction. Beautifully written - I used to say that if other books were like cotton, her books were velvet. Maybe a better comparison is water and blood. Generation Loss is different. It's more or less a mystery, set in modern day, and not science fiction. I suspect, f...more
A book so exquisitely tailored to my own tastes, with the added bonus of writing that's just violently good.
I mean. The seedy side of New York punk (which, you know, is actually saying something). Photography as a metaphor and a plot point and descriptions of which make my eyes ache to see these photos that don't exist. Creepy small town Maine. Almost noir-y mystery, with Adderall and crystal meth in addition to the hard-drinking whiskey. A mystery that sneaks up on you, that hits so many of th...more
I mean. The seedy side of New York punk (which, you know, is actually saying something). Photography as a metaphor and a plot point and descriptions of which make my eyes ache to see these photos that don't exist. Creepy small town Maine. Almost noir-y mystery, with Adderall and crystal meth in addition to the hard-drinking whiskey. A mystery that sneaks up on you, that hits so many of th...more
If you like a sense of eerie with ugly undertones, this is a great book for you. Me? I’m not so much into the ugly, I like being creeped out because I’m scared, not because the world isn’t a beautiful place. However, the atmosphere and mood is very well executed, nothing is being laid on too thick. I think really what I was most disappointed in was that I kept expecting (hoping) for it to be a gateway into another world, not just an unseen side of the world we know very well, but well, i wanted...more
I haven’t read a book like this in a long time, maybe never. Or maybe I should say I’ve not finished a book like this in a long time. What I mean is, the main character, Cassandra Neary, is so disgusting and selfish and unlikable, that usually if I don’t like the main character I have nothing to root for and won’t read the book. In this case I am so glad I read this book. The fact that it was written so well probably had a lot to do with why I finished it.
Cass Neary is a photographer burn-out ju...more
Cass Neary is a photographer burn-out ju...more
This is one of those books that straddles the line between literary and crime novel and I'm not sure it ever really decides what it is. If the main character weren't so unique and compelling it could have been a disaster. As it is, I can see the misanthropic nature of the lead and the meandering plot really disagreeing with people. Think Lisbeth Salander twenty years after the Millenium books and self-hate dialed up to 11.
There is a murder or two in these pages, but Hand appears more interestin...more
There is a murder or two in these pages, but Hand appears more interestin...more
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A kind of redemption story, in the bleakest possible terms. Cass Neary (cf. Cassandra of Greek myth) is a washed-up ex-punk photographer who lives from bottle to bottle, stocking boxes in the back room of the Strand. She gets a call to go to a remote island in Maine, to interview a mysterious icon of photography, Aphrodite Kamestos, who's holed up there since the 1960s. Cass makes her self-destructive, stumbling way through the frozen wasteland of the "real" Maine, where the economy has tanked a...more
I am a big Elizabeth Hand fan. I read all of her (non Star Wars) books in high school and college. It's been a few (10) years since I've read anything by her but when I saw that she had written this book I was eager to read it and to see if I still liked her writing style. This is a dark book, but at the same time it is a beautiful book and I really, really enjoyed it.
Cass Neary made it big as a photographer in the 1970's. She was part of the punk scene and specialized in photographing the dead;...more
Cass Neary made it big as a photographer in the 1970's. She was part of the punk scene and specialized in photographing the dead;...more
Cass Neary, a has-been photographer and drug user, goes to an island in Maine hoping to interview the reclusive Aphrodite Kamestos, another former photographer--and alcoholic. Cass is an unlikeable narrator, full of rage and given to impulsive behavior and paranoia, but Aphrodite is not much better. She only cares for her dogs and for drinking and accuse Cass of stealing her vision for no (initially) apparent reason. I might have given up on this, but the writing is terrific, especially when Han...more
If space aliens bio-merged Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, you’d get Cassandra “Cass” Neary--at least in her less active moments. She’s a middle-aged, has-been NYC photographer whose life, personality and career are as trapped in a single minute as one of her film negatives.
It’s somewhat easier to deal with the more extreme aspects of Neary’s character and the rotten things she does by pretending she’s a high-functioning zombie (or, as her lukewarm agent calls her, “Cassandra Android”). The...more
It’s somewhat easier to deal with the more extreme aspects of Neary’s character and the rotten things she does by pretending she’s a high-functioning zombie (or, as her lukewarm agent calls her, “Cassandra Android”). The...more
Feb 05, 2009
Sarah Keliher
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
poets, old punks, people with souls
Generation Loss is impossible to put down, in the same way that it's impossible to refrain from poking a beached dead seal with a stick: repellent but compelling. Hand combines a bunch of unlikely elements - an aging meth head, a famous photographer, a serial killer, an artists' commune, a sullen teenager, and the lonely, tangled wilds of the Maine coast - into a lean and perfect tale about endurance and redemption. A beautiful and unsettling book.
Cass Neary is a burnt out has been, a brief bright star of punk rock photography. Tricked into a field trip to Maine's coastal islands, to interview an icon of her field, she trips her way into the dark dramas remaining from a long-ago hippie commune.[return]The language is spare and lyrical, with descriptions of the coast and rocky islands with weather frigid enough to make me shiver. Cass is the coyote, the raven, the dark prankster, in search of a good time or at least some sense in a world t...more
hmmmm.....how do i start this review? Generation Loss is actually a fairly good book. when i bought this book, i had not realized i was buying and reading a book by Elizabeth Hand. it was so completely different from her other books that i had not realized she was the author until i had finished. in a way, i was glad that i did not know because i would have expected her normal touch of the supernatural and this book was completely missing that element.
Cass Neary had her 15 minutes of fame during...more
Cass Neary had her 15 minutes of fame during...more
While this is very poorly written, the observations are often trite and obvious, and most of the characters are quite forgettable, the main character is sharply observed--perhaps because it is a thinly disguised autobiographical tale--and the pace of the adventure is good after a very slow start. It isn't the great literary potboiler that the execrable Peter Straub suggests, but it is a decent rainy day book.
Ooo I saw her at a reading, and it was the first time I ever saw an author do ALL THE VOICES! So metal. Cass, the main character, is a punk junkie alcoholic, so watching her piece together this crime as she hits the Jack and swallows pills is kind of totally awesome. If by the end she has "redeemed herself", as the back of jacket says, then drugs and booze is still a major problem. Awesome.
This was a great lucky find. I saw it in a bookstore and the jacket copy grabbed me with "a cross between Pat Highsmith and Patti Smith". Of course that kind of copy is usually bullshit and this was partly also. The only Highsmith I found in it was the main character who came across a lot like Highsmith was supposed to in person. But the Patti Smith part was true in that the first part of the book deals with the protagonist's youth as an early star of the underground arts in mid-'70s New York.
Th...more
Th...more
If you're a fan of antiheroes and protagonists that are nearly (but not quite) impossible to like, this book is for you and Cassandra Neary is your woman. Oh sure, she's a tough cookie and likable for her hard edges and self-destructive tendencies, but can you really like her? I developed a sort of grudging respect for her dedication to damage, but there were definitely times when I nearly lost my ability to be on her side. This is quite a feat for a writer to achieve -- to create such a difficu...more
Cassandra Neary's a character a little too close for comfort for me. I'm not talking about the drinking and drug using, but the edge to her personality that's both her saving grace and the thing that does her in. An Erin Brockovich that went the wrong way. She's a washout, a failure (in her own eyes), someone who, for whatever reason, simply quit after the success of her one photography book in her youth. Thirty years later, she still doesn't feel good about her own work. Well, how could she if...more
Even Stephen King hasn't made up-state Main this creepy.
Drug-popping, alcoholic Cass Neary made herself famous by documenting the seedy side of the 80's punk movement. Fascinated by death, Cass photographed the bodies of junkies and other unfortunates that she found lying in the back alleys of New York City. But scorning her success, Cass turns her back on fame and foture and, twenty years later, finds herself working part-time in a stockroom. When she gets the chance to do a photo shoot of a wo...more
Drug-popping, alcoholic Cass Neary made herself famous by documenting the seedy side of the 80's punk movement. Fascinated by death, Cass photographed the bodies of junkies and other unfortunates that she found lying in the back alleys of New York City. But scorning her success, Cass turns her back on fame and foture and, twenty years later, finds herself working part-time in a stockroom. When she gets the chance to do a photo shoot of a wo...more
I've now read Waking the Moon, Black Light and Generation Loss (working on Mortal Love as well).
I think Generation Loss is her strongest work so far, from the gorgeous descriptive prose to the multiple shades of meaning of the title to the characterization of the relentlessly-unlikeable protagonist Cassandra Neary. The ending is a bit frustrating - too pat, too neat, but until that point it's a great book about art, love and madness.
A down-and-out photographer whose 15 minutes of fame came durin...more
I think Generation Loss is her strongest work so far, from the gorgeous descriptive prose to the multiple shades of meaning of the title to the characterization of the relentlessly-unlikeable protagonist Cassandra Neary. The ending is a bit frustrating - too pat, too neat, but until that point it's a great book about art, love and madness.
A down-and-out photographer whose 15 minutes of fame came durin...more
Not enough character development, not enough mystery. I agree this is a "unclassifiable" book. I read this because somewhere I read that the main character Cass Neary is similar to Lizbeth Salandar from Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I couldn't disagree more. Considering most of the characters were drunk and stoned on amphetamines throughout the book, I don't know how the characters could think straight. Nothing meshed. Further, it was not realistic that Cass Neary knows so much about art, furnitu...more
Cass Neary, famous for 15 minutes as a photographer involved with documenting the damage of the punk scene in New York, is more than down and out. Estranged from her family, nearly destitute and buoyed only by alcohol and other drugs, a last ditch assignment to interview a reclusive photographer, an idol of hers, could be a dream come true. Cass arrives at the bleak Maine seacoast and finds more than a simple assignment - why have so many teens disappeared in the area and will her idol disappoin...more
Generation Loss isn't what I expected, and that's a good thing. This story takes us inside the mind of a deeply flawed character, who is a competent photographer, but damaged individual. At times I felt sympathy, at times disgust, but I kept reading, swept along by the precise details of bleak landscape and fascinated by the character portrayal.
This novel reminded me of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me. In both stories, the reader is introduced to a narrator, only to realize something is very...more
This novel reminded me of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me. In both stories, the reader is introduced to a narrator, only to realize something is very...more
Cass Neary was Salander before there WAS a Salander, at least in English. What a relief to read such beautiful prose. It distracted me from wanting to give Cass Neary a good shake and ask, "What are you thinking??" Subjects dealt with: punk rock of the 80s and the Lower East Side music scene, over-the-edge photography, drugs and lots of them, coastal Maine. You'll never be able to figure out the connection without reading the book. It's gritty, somewhat sick-making at times, gorgeously written,...more
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A step outside of my comfort zone that I am, once again, happy I took. We have here a bisexual, alcoholic, drug using, post-traumatic female protagonist--not a strong, willful character like I usually read--but I did find myself pulling for her and interested to see what she would do next. One thing I liked about the Cass Neary character is that (probably due to her being constantly on some chemical stimulant) she did a lot of brave things normal people probably wouldn't do, and these events mov...more
I first encountered Elizabeth Hand via her debut novel,
Winterlong
. I thought it was great, if a bit opaque, and I liked her subsequent books,
Æstival Tide
and
Icarus Descending
, almost as much. Slightly earlier, I had also discovered similar writer Richard Grant, and was surprised to find they were a couple. I liked them both, but in my mind, both went wrong when they started writing less SFF and more contemporary, real world fantasy. In Hand's case, with
Glimmering
.
In Generation Loss, Cass...more
In Generation Loss, Cass...more
Elizabeth Hand's writing drew me in - her use of details to describe scenes creates a sense of verisimilitude that makes the story feel real. I found I enjoyed Generation Loss even more than Available Dark, which actually precedes Generation Loss (I recommend reading the books in chronological order). Hand's protagonist Cassandra Neary, whose fifteen minutes came some thirty years earlier, is an aging punker, drug and alcohol addicted, self-absorbed loser (even a seeming kleptomaniac - why did s...more
Cass made her initial splash in the art world at a young age, photographing the punk scene in the 1970's and also doing a series of self portrait reenactments of famous death scenes. She has experienced some trauma in her childhood, and the descriptions of her past indicate she may have some form of mental illness or autism spectrum disorder, as she seems to have some difficulty relating to others and at times, hears voices. Thirty years later, Cass is on a downward spiral of drinking and depres...more
Finally. Eureka. A strong female lead, a middle aged single woman whose existenz isn’t defined with the platitudes of a man hunt. OK, so she’s a junkie and an alcoholic – her main love in life is Jack Daniels and Corona.
Actually, that IS her life, now: questing from hit to hit, focused on the singularity of a microscopic raison d’etre in order to avert, no subvert, a kaleidoscope of opportunity costs, each one destined to crystallise an actuality of failed possibility.
Cass Neary is strummed of...more
Actually, that IS her life, now: questing from hit to hit, focused on the singularity of a microscopic raison d’etre in order to avert, no subvert, a kaleidoscope of opportunity costs, each one destined to crystallise an actuality of failed possibility.
Cass Neary is strummed of...more
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| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AP Lit. horror group: Cass as a character | 4 | 7 | Dec 05, 2011 07:22pm |
A New York Times notable and multiple award– winning author, Elizabeth Hand has written seven novels, including the cult classic Waking the Moon, and short-story collections. She is a longtime contributor to numerous publications, including the Washington Post Book World and the Village Voice Literary Supplement. She and her two children divide their time between the coast of Maine and North Londo...more
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“At the door I paused. 'So what was your spirit animal?'
'A dolphin. Fun in the sun, endless summer. What about you?'
'Dee Dee Ramone,' I said, and left.”
—
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'A dolphin. Fun in the sun, endless summer. What about you?'
'Dee Dee Ramone,' I said, and left.”
