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The Book of Evidence (Freddie Montgomery trilogy #1)

3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 · rating details · 1,515 ratings · 144 reviews

John Banville’s stunning powers of mimicry are brilliantly on display in this engrossing novel, the darkly compelling confession of an improbable murderer.

Freddie Montgomery is a highly cultured man, a husband and father living the life of a dissolute exile on a Mediterranean island. When a debt comes due and his wife and child are held as collateral, he returns to Ireland...more

Paperback, 220 pages

Published June 12th 2001 by Vintage (first published 1989)

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Oct 11, 2010 S. rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who thinks "the general awfulness of everything" can be redeemed by art.

Shelves: booker-noms, read-in-2009, 5-stars

I really enjoyed this book because I really enjoy despair and self-pity. Especially if it’s couched in a good story by an Irish writer with a fabulous vocabulary.

Banville is the saint of sumptuous sentences. Although the book is riddled with them, there’s a real knock-out on page 32:

“I drank my drink. There is something about gin, the tang in it of the deep wildwood, perhaps, that always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens. Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter.”

O...more

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Apr 30, 2011 Brad rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: irish-lit, unfinished

Fourth attempt, fourth time abandoning The Book of Evidence.

I made it a little farther this time, as I do each time I take a crack at it, but I've still not reached one hundred pages, and I can't see myself ever picking this book up again. But it's John Banville, and I am an Irish Lit guy, so I feel like something is wrong with me; I can't read his books.

But there's definitely something wrong with this book that isn't about me. John Banville doesn't care about his protagonist, Freddie Montgomery...more

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Dec 15, 2011 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

It struck me that quite a number of novels are written from the point of view of a really repulsive man, one of those bombastic egomaniacs who you'd walk over broken glass to avoid, yet in a novel you're trapped with this guy in your ear, in your brain, on every page, every sentence. No let up. Why would any writer saddle themselves and why would readers want to get saddled with such inescapable loathsomeness? In case you're wondering, here are examples of what I mean :

The Room - Hubert Selby
Ext...more

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Apr 05, 2009 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jeff by: How to Read Novels Like a Professor

Shelves: prof-foster-recommends, murderers-row

Freddie Montgomery tells us the story of his life and his crime. We can't be sure if this is post-conviction or pre-trial "confession." As such, he meanders through his adult life with brief flashbacks to sensual moments from his youth. Describing gin: "[it:] always makes me think of twilight and mists and dead maidens. Tonight it tinkled in my mouth like secret laughter." Discussing his theory that humans are not fit to live in this kind of world: "How could they survive, these gentle earthling...more

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Feb 21, 2010 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars

A witty and satirical narrative by a murderer, very reminiscent of Nabokov's Lolita. Like that novel, the protagonist's moral degeneracy is intermingled with superbly ironic and satirical observations. In Lolita Humbert Humbert remarks, "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style" and Banville's narrator, Freddie, like Humbert, also has a delightful prose style, with metaphors to die for.

The story is, however, more poignant because Freddie struggles with his guilt far more seriou...more

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Feb 10, 2009 Clodagh rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is so believable I became throughly depressed reading it. The self justification of the main character and self absorbed sociopath tendencies he displays were really quite upsetting. I believed him, I was engaged, pulled in and wanted to do nothing more than to pull him out of the book and shake him until he could learn to feel emotions for other people, and to feel remorse. The writing is amazing, Banville is a genius. This is one of the best books I've read, but also one of the harde...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Kristel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1001-books, ireland, irish-literature

Narrated by Freddie Montgomery who is waiting trial from jail for the murder he committed while stealing a painting from the home of family friend.

The first half of the book is a weaving of Freddie’s memories and current thoughts. We learn that Freddie is from Ireland but has ben lving in the California and on a island in the Mediterranean with his wife and son. Freddie gets into some trouble with gangster, owes money and is forced to go home to get the money. At home, Freddie finds his mother t...more Narrated by Freddie Montgomery who is waiting trial from jail for the murder he committed while stealing a painting from the home of family friend.

The first half of the book is a weaving of Freddie’s memories and current thoughts. We learn that Freddie is from Ireland but has ben lving in the California and on a island in the Mediterranean with his wife and son. Freddie gets into some trouble with gangster, owes money and is forced to go home to get the money. At home, Freddie finds his mother to be quite poor. She says she was forced to sell the paintings because Freddie has been living off his father’s money. This angers Freddie who feels his mother has squandered his inheritance. Freddie visits the neighbor, goes back to steal a painting and is caught by a young maid which he forces to go with him and later kills. The second half of the book tells of his arrest and his interaction with the legal authorities.

I decided to read this rather short book because of the controversy in the 1001 Books You Must Read Group. It was a 5 star book for one and 2 stars from the guys. First, I knew that the murder description was graphic and it was so (I skimmed quickly over) and that there was description of vomit and there is some sexual stuff too. The narrator is totally unreliable and self focused thus narcissistic is a good description as well as antisocial and has also been referred to as amoral. In his narrative, at times it would appear that Freddie is trying to blame everyone and everything for what has happened. I agree with John, there is no remorse. The last line, is remorse that he has not been respected more and admired more for what has happened and he has taken on the idea that he can give life back to this girl nor do we the reader ever know what is truth. Freddie’s reality is so distorted. The story was based on the 1982 incident of Edward MacArthur, who killed a young nurse in Dublin during the course of stealing her car. The phrase grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented (GUBU) was paraphrased from a comment by then Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland, Charles Haughey, while describing a strange series of incidents in the summer of 1982 that led to a double-murderer being apprehended in the house of the Irish Attorney General. Edward MacArthur was staying with the attorney general and later resigned after MacArthur was arrested. Banville was attempting to give his prose more characteristics of poetry. The book won Ireland's Guinness Peat Aviation Award in 1989 and was short-listed for Britain's Booker Prize. There is a sequel to this book called Ghosts in which many of the characters reappear.

I didn’t find the book as distateful as the 2 star reviewers now maybe as 5 star as Shelley but I will give in 3.5 stars. I liked The Sea better in which the author does achieve the qualities of poetry. (less)

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Apr 22, 2011 Brett rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

John Banville's Book of Evidence is a dark and beautifully written story that ultimately left me disappointed. Banville's use of language and his ability to capture near-universal thoughts and emotions is remarkable:[return][return]"Is there anything as powerfully, as piercingly evocative, as the smell of the house in which one's childhood was spent? I try to avoid generalisations, as no doubt the court has noticed, but surely this is a universal, this involuntary spasm of recognition which come...more

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Sep 10, 2010 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

These are the confessions from prison of a first person unreliable narrator who does not believe in free will, is convinced that the self is illusory, finds cause and effect problematical, and becomes a gifted scientist who finds reality probabilistic. He admits to feeling intimidated by other people who seem so sure of themselves, and he sees himself as being easily influenced by the arguments of others, or at least prone to agree with them so as to feel good about himself or at least accepted....more These are the confessions from prison of a first person unreliable narrator who does not believe in free will, is convinced that the self is illusory, finds cause and effect problematical, and becomes a gifted scientist who finds reality probabilistic. He admits to feeling intimidated by other people who seem so sure of themselves, and he sees himself as being easily influenced by the arguments of others, or at least prone to agree with them so as to feel good about himself or at least accepted. The narrative seems to be plea or apologia that Freddie is writing to the judge for his future trial. It is unclear what is true, what Freddie thinks is true, and what he relates disingenuously. Having apparently long since given up on a scientific career or even any gainful employment, Freddie has roamed around Europe for ten years with his wife Daphne and their child, sponging off tourists in Mediterranean resort towns until he is forced to leave his wife and child as sort of hostages with an ominous creditor, returning himself to his childhood home and mother in Ireland to try to scrape up the money necessary to pay his debts. Arriving at his home he is awash with memories, his reminiscences serving to flesh out the history of his life to this point.

Freddie’s descriptions of places and persons and also of his own feelings are often uncannily evocative of the writings of Edgar Allen Poe, occasionally even of Dostoevsky, equally macabre and delivered in a similarly wry and even somewhat flippant tone. He muses on the very concept of badness, questioning whether it has any substance or existential reality. At times he seems to be claiming a split personality. Is he really convinced of this or is it all an elaborate put-on, an act that he is playing for the judge? Freddie seems curiously and constantly to be convinced of his lack of responsibility for his actions, his crimes seeming to have occurred without his active volition and therefore without his personal responsibility. The course of events is presented as being both inevitable and unintended, tragic and banal, almost trivial. Is there in this world any place for free will? If not, what defines evil? This apparent amorality is unsettling and raises important questions about how we attribute responsibility and therefore accountability to our actions. Is our cultural system of ethics and our penal paradigm based on something that is arbitrary or even illogical?

While not a greatly memorable book, Banville’s novel is intriguing and raises important questions and issues that deserve pondering. One question that might be asked is what Banville’s own view is, if he has one. Is he being critical of what he sees as moral relativity or lack of moral compass? Or is he demonstrating the flaws in traditional views of evil? Like any good novel, this one does not make that clear. The novel was short-listed for the Booker Prize.
(less)

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Aug 05, 2010 Denerick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mammy's boys everywhere will cringe. The poor mother! This book is the confession of Freddie Montgomery, a murderer and thief hailing from a successful Catholic middle class Irish family, who made good in California and abandoned his family in order to run away (And hopefully get cash together) to pay off his debtors.

I never expected to enjoy John Banville. I anticipated that he would write a well trodden Irish novel - priest, pauper, emigrants, sexual frustration with inchoate anger and despair...more

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Apr 18, 2010 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Banville, John. THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE. (1989). ****. From a review by Anna Foca: “Freddie Montgomery narrates The Book Of Evidence from his jail cell as he awaits trial for a murder he committed during a burglary so inexplicable it brings into question his declining mental state. Freddie appears to be a family man, living on a Mediterranean island with his wife and their young son; he steps into a dangerous world, however, when he blackmails a local criminal into loaning him a large sum of money....more

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May 05, 2013 Sheri rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: male-female-power-sex-attractivenes, poverty-class-issues

This felt like an Irish John Updike. Freddie Montgomery is arguably worse than Rabbit; but the time period is the same and the language use and description was similar. Also reminded me a bit of McEwan's despicable main character in Solar.

Unfortunately, it was a bit repetitive; I am starting to feel rather repetitive myself, ever since reading Didion my main complaint is that everything is repetitive. Is this an example of life imitating art or just that through art I have finally noticed the re...more This felt like an Irish John Updike. Freddie Montgomery is arguably worse than Rabbit; but the time period is the same and the language use and description was similar. Also reminded me a bit of McEwan's despicable main character in Solar.

Unfortunately, it was a bit repetitive; I am starting to feel rather repetitive myself, ever since reading Didion my main complaint is that everything is repetitive. Is this an example of life imitating art or just that through art I have finally noticed the repetitiveness of everything?

Anyway, Banville has a few themes and he is not afraid to stroke them repetitively throughout. Most frequently, he addresses the criminal's wish for self-efficacy and fame (and the psychological desire for attention and notice that is rewarded upon arrest and imprisonment): "I confess I had hopelessly romantic expectations of how things would be in here. Somehow I pictured myself a sort of celebrity, kept apart from the other prisoners in a special wing, where I would receive parties of grave, important people and hold forth to them about the great issues of the day, impressing the men and charming the ladies." He is so relieved as to be almost glorious in his arrest: "Yes, to be found out, to be suddenly pounced upon, beaten, stripped, and set before the howling multitude, that was my deepest, most ardent desire." and then in the capture: "From now on I would be watched over, I would be tended and fed and listened to, like a big, dangerous babe."

He also loves to discuss the lack of intention in our actions. Freddie is convinced that he set out without purpose and that simple random coincidences led to his criminal behavior. This is, of course, absurdly ridiculous and yet 100% true. Always, in life, we can stop our actions or change course. However, most frequently it is easier to succumb to inertia and just follow along paths which previous actions have blazed. I really liked some of Banville's turn of phrase on this point: "[the question] assumes that actions are determined by volition, deliberate thought, a careful weighing-up of facts, all that puppet-show twitching which passes for consciousness. I was living like that because I was living like that, there is no other answer. When I look back, no matter how hard I try I can see no clear break between one phase and another." Later he again argues, "There is no moment in this process of which I can confidently say, there, that is when I decided she should die. Decided? I do not think it was a matter of deciding. I do not think it was a matter of thinking, even."

A third theme is the inhumanity of humans. Like all nasty (self serving, self aware, and malicious) characters, Freddie is able to analyze his own actions and frequently describes himself as something less than human. He pardons himself with the excuse that he is really two beasts, the one under control and then the other under the surface. Freddie declares: "To do the worst thing, the very worst thing, that's the way to be free. I would never again need to pretend to myself to be what I was not."

He is also: "Never wholly anywhere, never with anyone, either, that was me, always. Even as a child I seemed to myself a traveller who had been delayed in the middle of an urgent journey. Life was an unconscionable wait, walking up and down the platform, watching for the train." I love this description because it captures one of my favorite life issues (gotta figure out how to live in the moment to be happy), while simultaneously giving the example of this extremely dissatisfied being who cannot ever live in the moment.

One complaint I have is that the narrator was not completely honest. He describes himself in the opening paragraph (which is well crafted and definitely grabs the reader's attention) as a cannibal: "the girl-eater, svelte and dangerous, padding to and fro in my cage". I was actually (surprisingly) sort of disappointed when it turned out that he just walked away from Josie while she was still alive. Certainly, leaving her to die on her own is horrid; but I read the whole book under the impression that Freddie would really lose it in the end and anticipated a gory scene that just didn't occur.

Overall it was an interesting read with some worthwhile moments.(less)

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Nov 13, 2010 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: rubbish-bin

I am not enjoying this book. There's a genre of what passes for entertainment which I cannot enjoy, and this novel belongs to it.
This group of works includes The Slap by Tsiolkas, and the movie and book Wake in Fright, which many Australians will know (both of these I have referred to are Australian, though Book of Evidence is Irish).
They are works which are critically acclaimed, and well produced and written, but which I find soul-crushing to witness. They seek to portray the ugly amoral hypo...more I am not enjoying this book. There's a genre of what passes for entertainment which I cannot enjoy, and this novel belongs to it.
This group of works includes The Slap by Tsiolkas, and the movie and book Wake in Fright, which many Australians will know (both of these I have referred to are Australian, though Book of Evidence is Irish).
They are works which are critically acclaimed, and well produced and written, but which I find soul-crushing to witness. They seek to portray the ugly amoral hypocrisy of a group of people, and their innocent victims, or merely to highlight the meaninglessness of life. They delight in long descriptions of senseless, and inexplicable violence and offensiveness, without sign of redemption or reason. Their raison d'etre is to open our eyes to our own depravity, or that of the society in which we live, and they wander through incident after incident aimlessly in an attempt to build up a foreboding sense of horror, but the survey of amorality is not a strong enough impetus for the plot, and it suffers from an acute lack of direction. It's poor mimicry, to my mind, of Dostoevski's aim in Crime and Punishment, but lacking in the inspirational insight in that work. Speaking of mimicry, this is written very much after the style of Camus or Kafka, which is certainly a tribute to Banville, I guess.
I don't find this to be the stuff of entertainment. I suppose I'm a bit sheepish to admit that I do like a nice little feel-good movie, and I like to learn to appreciate and love life and people and the world around me in my reading. I'm a pessimist about humanity and the future in general, and books like these just bring me down. I wouldn't presume to say that this is not a good work, and I'm a bit ashamed of putting a Pulizer shortlisted book into my rubbish bin, but I cannot enjoy it, and I probably won't bother reading it to the end. I know there won't be any happy ending, or even a resolution to place the amorality into context or enlighten me at the end of all that gloom.
This book documents the decline and comeuppance of a wealthy, dissipated and directionless ne'er do well with no moral code, who murders a woman after he gets himself into a debt to one of his many rip-off victims, who was into criminal elements. His immediate victim has his ear cut off by gang members and sent to him, and the useless protagonist is threatened by the gang leader into leaving his wife and son (whom he doesn't really care too much for) on a Mediterranean island as unknowing hostages whilst our hero goes home to try to suck more money out of what is left of his family, whom he has betrayed and left in the lurch years before. The money is not forthcoming and he ends up murdering the maid of an acquaintance he once desultorily screwed with his wife in a threesome after sponging off her for a while. Like the sound of this? You're welcome to it. (less)

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Mar 11, 2010 Peggy Aylsworth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-d-recommend

I am a passionate Banville fan. Not that every book of his has enchanted me...but those that have...and there are quite a few...remain on my recommended list.

This book, like so many written by Banville, is like a long prose poem. The narrator, Freddie Montgomery, is a well-educated man, alienated, cynical at odds with the world.
And he murders a woman with intent. Not a jolly figure to invite into one's living room...BUT..Banville drew me in so completely that I felt I was living Freddie's psyche...more

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May 04, 2013 Hamish rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: lit

It's hard to read this and not think of Nabokov, even more so than with Banville's other stuff. A lot of that is because it's a first-person telling of horrible crime by a very pathetic, hateable (but not quite sociopathic), yet almost charming villain, ala Despair or Lolita. But there's also the style it's written in; the word choices, the specific details he emphasizes, the playfulness, it all screams Nabokov. Still, it never feels like a cheap imitation. It feels more like Banville studied N...more It's hard to read this and not think of Nabokov, even more so than with Banville's other stuff. A lot of that is because it's a first-person telling of horrible crime by a very pathetic, hateable (but not quite sociopathic), yet almost charming villain, ala Despair or Lolita. But there's also the style it's written in; the word choices, the specific details he emphasizes, the playfulness, it all screams Nabokov. Still, it never feels like a cheap imitation. It feels more like Banville studied N closely and learned all the important lessons that N had to teach, and then applied them to his own work. Someone doing an easy, surface imitation would not have been able to pull off what Banville does here. He's just so good at everything. His writing here is almost virtuosic. I remember reading that he can spend an entire day on just one sentence, and the effort shows. He never overdoes or underdoes it, his prose is almost perfect. And for that reason you can forgive him for his relatively unoriginal style. I would compare him to The Jam. They wore their influences on their sleeve and made no bones about it, but they still wrote some fine songs.

There's also something in how well he portrays the psychology of our narrator. It's completely convincing and at times I got so wrapped up in it that I would get anxious, and I'd have to stop and remind myself that I didn't murder anyone and I'm not going to be on trial soon. Kind of like when you dream that you did something awful, and when you wake up you feel guilty and scared and it takes a while for you to remember that it didn't actually happen.

P.S. This brings up something that I've thought a lot about: The relationship between originality and quality (and not just in literature). I think there's a pretty strong relationship between the two, but I don't think it's absolute. My working theory is that someone who is talented and has a good aesthetic sense will automatically gravitate towards doing something new, that the inspiration that leads to someone writing something of worth is the same inspiration that will lead them to try something that hasn't been done. Similarly, someone who is content to imitate existing works is probably lacking in the creativity that would lead to them creating something of a high quality. But then there are people like Banville who demonstrate that this is not always true. But again, Banville never really feels like an imitator, it's just that he's not completely original either. So this is still an unfinished thought.(less)

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Apr 01, 2010 Frank rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish-authors

Well, what does one say about a first-person confessional written from a prison cell? That the narrator is suave, educated and erudite—a somewhat accidental murderer—is both charming and disarming; within the first few pages, I was reminded of the structure of Nabokov's Lolita. Indeed, Freddie Montgomery shares quite a few traits with good ol' Hum, not the least of which is an unhealthy dose of unreliability as a narrator. Not among them however is motive; their pathologies are quiet different:...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Garlan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads, what-i-call-literature

While I really enjoy Banville's literary prowess, I keep noticing that his main characters aren't very enjoyable. They lie, cheat, engage in self-indulgent introspection, and generally treat everyone around them carelessly; they're just not very likeable.
The Book of Evidence follows Frederick Montgomery (even the name sounds pompous) as he engages in, at first, spiteful behavior which rapidly becomes criminal action. The main character relates his story almost as an entreaty to the judge and...more

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May 01, 2011 Benjamin Uminsky rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-lit

This is my first Banville. Book of Evidence was a very aesthetically pleasing read. The prose was really strong an really carried the story. The story on the other hand, was essentially a mundane murderer-gets-caught-and-spills-his-guts-to-the-reader type of story, except for one thing... you have no idea if any of what you are reading is actually true. Freddie Montgomery is a liar and simply a despicable human being. While, I do credit Banville with an effective (and innovative) use of the unre...more

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Oct 27, 2012 The Chameleon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary, novel

Banville's 'The Book of Evidence' is a dark, brilliant, beautiful, frightening thing. They say every person has a book in them, and for the most part, that's where it should stay. But this piece from Banville is pure poetry, macabre, daring, witty, challenging, thought-provoking and, for the novel's slender size, an articulate economy of language and story. I've always wondered what a prisoner might do with all that time ... Freddie Montgomery, a man in serious debt trouble who has murdered a wo...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Tracy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle, fiction

I went into this book filled with trepidation - I was so unimpressed by The Sea. But this redeems Banville in my eyes.

I love the way this story was told, the personal, biased narration of the events leading up to the 'confession' - the slimy, amoral, defensiveness of it all, laced with a degree of pride, it was a great voice. His family issues, so manifestly obvious to the reader even as he professed obliviousness - well done.

Story wise, it peaked a bit early, at the actual murder ... it felt ve...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Kyra rated it 4 of 5 stars

Montgomery, the murderer, the protagonist of this narrative, strikes me as he tells his tale to be the foremost unreliable narrator. He is guilty, of course, of course, but of what? Some sort of existential botch to hear him tell it. Not murder where a person with a soul is taken forcably. Oh no. Montgomery is much to delicate for that. He shirks duties and agrees with himself on every pleasure he takes, and regards himself first as a man deserving of enjoyment; a connoisseur of pleasure that he...more Montgomery, the murderer, the protagonist of this narrative, strikes me as he tells his tale to be the foremost unreliable narrator. He is guilty, of course, of course, but of what? Some sort of existential botch to hear him tell it. Not murder where a person with a soul is taken forcably. Oh no. Montgomery is much to delicate for that. He shirks duties and agrees with himself on every pleasure he takes, and regards himself first as a man deserving of enjoyment; a connoisseur of pleasure that he curates like the Dutch paintings that in the end so inflamed him. But, alas, he's not a hard worker at his pleasures. He is entitled to them, a taker of them, a thief of pleasures earned and kept by others. After duping a hustler of his own ill gotten gains, he is forced to leave his wife and child in some unnamed demi-paradise and hustle home to Ireland to try and get the money he needs to return them. There is so little urgency in this task and at times it seems he has forgotten it altogether. The first sin he permits of himself is laziness, a profound laziness that first drives his cynicism and ultimately engenders his murderous rage. This book is told by a lazy man who gradually becomes sinister because of his failure to create over a lifetime anything of value, and so in the end, he decides that it is the murder itself that will be his creation, indeed he has really no idea why he's done it. He wants you to know that he's guilty, and he wants you to know that he's smart and aesthetically sensitive about it. What emerges from his narrative of his acts is the portrait of a sociopath who is startled by other's humanity.

It's a brief, incisive read, that harkens to Nabokov. First of a trilogy the second volume of which has sat on my shelf for 25 years unread. I guess I'll manage to choke the second volume Ghosts down now and put it to rest, if you pardon the pun. Banville is a cold writer. His sentences maintain tension, are smooth and round and don't call attention to themselves. There is a clinical feel to this writing that I appreciate, but not all readers will, I expect. Still, the craftsman will admire it. Well done.(less)

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May 12, 2013 Courtney Gustafson rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was recommended to me by a friend, because he loves Banville and I love stories involving prison. Put simply, it's the story of a man who commits a murder because he can, told from his prison cell in the form of a confession. The novel alternates between the past-tense story of the killing and present-tense scenes from jail just frequently enough so that you are forced to acknowledge the simultaneously-existing characters of the sympathetic captive man and the senseless killer, who are, of...more

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Oct 01, 2011 Philip Lane rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not overly impressed despite the subject matter being very much to my liking. I felt very muddled at the end of reading it - which was perhaps deliberate as the protaganist and narrator seemed himself to be very muddled. Frederick Montgomery tells his own story, in the main, in the form of evidence in his own trial. I was hoping for the thrill of seeing a crime through the eyes of the criminal (as with Mr Ripley) but found Frederick such a drip that I couldn't even feel pity for any of the unfor...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Joseph Sverker added it

Shelves: novels-britannia-and-ireland

This was a disturbing read. However interesting it might be to get insight someone head it is not always pleasurable and Banville makes a very good job in maintaining that feeling of angst that the reader gets from the first page. A thought that followed me through this book was just how gruesome will this murder be. When we get to it it turns out that in a way it is more the fact that the reader is so thoroughly insight the main character's head that makes it so difficult to read through the wh...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Terry rated it 2 of 5 stars

Book of Evidence is Crime and Punishment Goes to Ireland. It shouldn't be a spoiler to say it's about a murder--a random murder committed because the murderer "could" or maybe because the protagonist is just freaking out. It's grim and depressing with no redeeming characters or motivations, just a downward spiral of guilt, desperation and inexplicable acts of hostility and exploitation. It's short but at several points I thought of giving up and yet I couldn't quite do it. The quality of the wri...more

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Apr 11, 2010 Hannah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Banville is a genius. The intricate works of imagination. I could read this book again despite it being a little creepy...

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Feb 13, 2013 J. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish, favorites

Freddie Montgomery has stolen a Dutch master painting and killed the maid who witnessed the robbery. Freddie admits his crimes and realizes that he had the will to commit them and seems to hope that by recounting the events he will discover why. I warmed towards Freddie and his prevaricating ways (the vivid and grim murder event turning me off briefly).

The Book of Evidence contains one of the best descriptions of a hangover that I have ever read. Banville is a foremost English prose stylist and...more

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Mar 01, 2013 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-fiction

The problem I almost have with Banville is that his use of the language is just so beautiful. That doesn't sound like a problem, but it almost becomes one when every other page has one stopping to go back and read a sentence or two over a few times, just to savor the sound or the phrasing. But the story is gripping enough to make you dive right back into it. An unpleasant story, to be sure, and the narrator and technically-he-must-be-the protagonist Freddie is a consistently unsympathetic charac...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Perry Whitford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of Dunleavy and Nabokov.

Irish writers always seem to be predisposed to the cad's story, as is Banville here. Percy Montgomery is telling his tale of selfishness and greed to an imaginary jury that he will soon face for a brutal, senseless murder, trying to explain his motives. He abandons his wife to gangsters, treats family and friends with equal fecklessness, concerned only for himself.

The writer that came most to mind as I laughed and winced through the book though was Vladimir Nabokov, the master of narrators poss...more

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May 20, 2011 lindsay rated it 1 of 5 stars

If I could give this book zero stars, I would have. It is certainly one of the 5 worst books I have ever read, and I'm still deciding whether it's the very worst. The narrator is a pompous, arrogant, lying, vile character. I found nothing sympathetic or amusing or even interesting about the story. I put the book down out of sheer irritation and had to force myself to pick it up a few months later just to finish it. I'm sorry I wasted an extra hour of my life reading through to the end and I want...more

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About John Banville

Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a reminiscence of growing up...more Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.

Educated at a Christian Brothers' school and at St Peter's College in Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect he did not attend university. Banville has described this as "A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free." After school he worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus which allowed him to travel at deeply-discounted rates. He took advantage of this to travel in Greece and Italy. He lived in the United States during 1968 and 1969. On his return to Ireland he became a sub-editor at the Irish Press, rising eventually to the position of chief sub-editor. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970.

After the Irish Press collapsed in 1995, he became a sub-editor at the Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, suffered severe financial problems, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left. Banville has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books since 1990. In 1984, he was elected to Aosdána, but resigned in 2001, so that some other artist might be allowed to receive the cnuas.

Banville also writes under the pen name Benjamin Black. His first novel under this pen name was Christine Falls, which was followed by The Silver Swan in 2007. Banville has two adult sons with his wife, the American textile artist Janet Dunham. They met during his visit to San Francisco in 1968 where she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. Dunham described him during the writing process as being like "a murderer who's just come back from a particularly bloody killing". Banville has two daughters from his relationship with Patricia Quinn, former head of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Banville has a strong interest in vivisection and animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.(less)

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Quotes from The Book of Evidence

“It was not just the drink, though, that was making me happy, but the tenderness of things, the simple goodness of the world. This sunset, for instance, how lavishly it was laid on, the clouds, the light on the sea, that heartbreaking, blue-green distance, laid on, all of it, as if to console some lost suffering waybarer. I have never really got used to being on this earth. Somethings I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and other, grimmer skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, off on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. And the ones who were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? No, they would have become extinct long ago. How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was meant to contain us?” — 5 people liked it

“Halfway up the drive there was
God these tedious details.
Halfway up there was a…” — 3 people liked it

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The Book of Evidence (Freddie Montgomery trilogy #1)

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