Ghostwritten

by David Mitchell

book data

1,592 ratings, 4.04 average rating, 218 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		32%
4		45%
3		17%
2		4%
1		1%

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published

October 9th 2001 (first published 1999) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 426 pages

isbn

0375724508 (isbn13: 9780375724503)

description

"What is real and what is not?" David Mitchell's Ghostwritten: A Novel in Nine Parts plays with precisely this question throughout its ela...more

[close] "What is real and what is not?" David Mitchell's Ghostwritten: A Novel in Nine Parts plays with precisely this question throughout its elaborately compartmentalized narrative. (That there are 10 chapters in this 9-part invention is just one more aspect of the author's mysterious schema.) With its multitude of voices and globe-girdling locations--Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Petersburg, London--this first novel offers readers a vertiginous, sometimes seductive, display of persona and place.

At the heart of Mitchell's book is the global extension of the postmodern city, and the networks (cultural, technological, phantasmagoric) to which it gives rise. A metropolis like Tokyo is quite literally beyond our comprehension:

Twenty million people live and work in Tokyo. It's so big that nobody really knows where it stops. It's long since filled up the plain, and now it's creeping up the mountains to the west and reclaiming land from the bay in the east. The city never stops rewriting itself. In the time one street guide is produced, it's already become out of date. It's a tall city, and a deep one, as well as a spread-out one.

At this level, urban sprawl becomes an epistemological condition. On one hand it leads to a Japanese death cult, purging the "unclean" from the city's subway with nerve gas. And on the other, it produces a certain splintering of the human personality. "I'm this person, I'm this person, I'm that person, I'm that person too," chants Neal, the narrator of the book's second part. "No wonder it's all such a ... mess." He's talking about his life as a Hong Kong trader, a "man of departments, compartments, apartments." But he might also be describing the experience of reading Ghostwritten. At once loquacious and knowing, leisurely and frantic, Mitchell offers a huge, but fragmentary, portmanteau. And while he's labored diligently to solder together the many parts--the aching bodies, the reality police, the impossibly complex machinery of contemporary life--his novel, too, may suffer from an excess of split personality. --Vicky Lebeau

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01/05/08

Rob rated it:

(review of isbn 0679463046)

bookshelves: 2008, apocalypse, to-re-read

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Rob by: Amy
recommends it for: someone that wants to see Murakami's British doppelgänger

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

FIRSTLY: If the entire novel had bristled with the same energy and momentum as the bottom half of the book (i.e., from "Holy Mountain" through to "Night Train") then my review here would bristle with five stars. That said, I also do not believe that those subsequent chapters could have been nearly as successful without the supporting cast of Okinawa, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. (Jury is still out on the closer, Underground.)

David Mitchell delivers a very strong novel...more FIRSTLY: If the entire novel had bristled with the same energy and momentum as the bottom half of the book (i.e., from "Holy Mountain" through to "Night Train") then my review here would bristle with five stars. That said, I also do not believe that those subsequent chapters could have been nearly as successful without the supporting cast of Okinawa, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. (Jury is still out on the closer, Underground.)

David Mitchell delivers a very strong novel here. Stylistically, it is very mature -- especially for a first novel from such a young author. He is able to bring themes, concepts, and phrases from one section into another apparently disjointed section fluidly, naturally and -- most of the time -- without that recurrence or repetition feeling like a gimmick. Mitchell is screwing with you (the reader), and you both know it, but the reason that you believe he is screwing with you is a little bit different than the reason he believes he is screwing with you. Meanwhile, the narrative has an agenda of its own. The comparisons to Haruki Murakami are justified but not all together accurate; Murakami blissfully and accidentally trips into an improbable parallel universe while Mitchell begrudgingly tries to inch his way back from a very possible tangential universe.

Now there were two thematic elements of the story that jumped out at me as worthy of commenting upon:

(1) Varying shades of apocalypse. Maybe my sensitivity to the subject is up because I'm also neck-deep in the John Joseph Adams collection " Wastelands" but there is a sense of penultimate destruction within each of the disjointed narratives in Ghostwritten. We start with a cult member trying to hurry along a very eschatological apocalypse and over the course of 400 more pages, we work our way through every flavor of personal or global threat we can stomach. The whimsical, speculative damnation of the "Night Train" component was clearly my favorite. (Though "Holy Mountain" blew my mind for the way tone and voice was used as the treatment for personal and national world-ending.)

(2) Have any other readers picked up on the sub-text that concerns conception and birth? Every one of these tales somehow works in a child (real or imagined, material or emblematic) that I presume is supposed to function as a cue for each story's theme. But the children aren't safe and sound. They're adopted orphans, aborted fetuses, ghosts of infanticide, bastards, parents that can't conceive, a precocious matricidal AI... I have not quite figured out this sub-text yet (hence the "to-re-read" shelving) but it's definitely there. And it is haunting me.(less)

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09/28/07

Lissa rated it:

Read in September, 2006

You must read this book.

Ghostwritten is at once an entire novel and a series of stories. The book is divided into nine parts told by nine different narrators: a member of a cult based in Japan that is trying to “cleanse” the earth; a young saxophone player who works in a record store; a British attorney working in Hong Kong caught up in a money laundering scheme; an old Buddhist woman who owns a tea and noodle shop on the slopes of a Holy Mountain; a non-corporal automaton looki...more You must read this book.

Ghostwritten is at once an entire novel and a series of stories. The book is divided into nine parts told by nine different narrators: a member of a cult based in Japan that is trying to “cleanse” the earth; a young saxophone player who works in a record store; a British attorney working in Hong Kong caught up in a money laundering scheme; an old Buddhist woman who owns a tea and noodle shop on the slopes of a Holy Mountain; a non-corporal automaton looking for evidence of his corporal past; an art thief in St. Petersberg; a young drummer and womanizer in London; a physicist employed by the CIA on the run; and a New York City “shock jock”. In each of these stories, Mitchell uses a different voice and realistically tells very different stories from the viewpoints of the different narrators.

Each of the nine stories could stand on their own – the people in them have little to do with one another, and yet there is a small but tangible web of connections between them. Each character is introduced briefly, tangentially, in the previous story, prior to being able to tell them own. Aside from the appearances of different characters in each others’ stories, the connections are emphasized by Mitchell’s use of language. For instance, the main character in the first story is named “Quasar”. Later, the word quasar is as an analogy for various events in two other stories. Language relating to ghosts and comets also crop up again and again in different stories. For example, this bit is from the attorney’s story:

For the last few months I’ve been living with three women. One was a ghost, who is now a woman. One was a woman, who is now a ghost. One is a ghost and always will be. But this isn’t a ghost story: the ghost is in the background, where she has to be. If she was in the foreground she’d be a person.

And this is from the drummer/womanizer’s story:

I couldn’t get to sleep afterwards, worrying about the possible endings of the stories that had been started. Maybe that’s why I’m a ghostwriter. The endings have nothing to do with me.

Unfortunately, I found the ending of this book to be a little heavy-handed. Mitchell’s book as a whole makes a statement about the world and the way that the events in one person’s life impact the lives of other people. However, in the final story, I think he wanted to make a far grander Statement, and as a result it feels extremely heavy-handed in comparison to the rest of the book. Despite that flaw, I highly recommend this book. In fact, when I was finished, I almost felt compelled to turn it over and start again, just to look for more connections between the stories with foreknowledge of what comes next.
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07/14/08

Ben rated it:

bookshelves: favorites, fiction, read-2009

Read in April, 2009

Mitchell really surprised me with this one. This being his first novel, I had lower expectations than his other novels. However, this may be the best of the bunch.

I love how Mitchell weaves in these small science fiction elements without making it SF. I believe I read that he lists Le Guin as one of his early influences and it shows. However, it is just one of the small things that makes this book great. If you loved Cloud Atlas, you will love this one, and vice-versa.

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06/20/08

Jason Pettus rated it:

Read in December, 2008

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Although I haven't brought up the subject here in awhile, the fact is that as a book critic and a lover of underground literature, it's important to me to become a "completist" of certain artists out there, or in other words to have consumed every single artistic project they've ...more (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Although I haven't brought up the subject here in awhile, the fact is that as a book critic and a lover of underground literature, it's important to me to become a "completist" of certain artists out there, or in other words to have consumed every single artistic project they've ever done. After all, I'm behind on a lot of this stuff compared to other critics my age -- I spent my twenties and early thirties as a working author myself, concentrating much more on writing my own books than reading other people's; and that leaves me near the age of forty with just these sometimes giant holes in my underground-arts education, embarrassing holes that as a critic I absolutely shouldn't have.

Take, oh, say, David Mitchell for example, who over the course of a decade now and four celebrated novels (three of them nominated for the freaking Booker) has become widely acknowledged as one of the best living surrealist authors on the planet; but before this week I hadn't ever read a single word by him, which should be some sort of crime against the underground arts if it isn't already. And it just so happens that one of the Chicago library branches up here by my place owns all four of Mitchell's books (I'm looking at you, cute nerdy acquisitions manager with the clunky glasses), so I've decided to finally start tackling them all myself, starting with the oldest, 1999's Ghostwritten. And that of course brings up one of the interesting things sometimes about reading the early work of someone who's now famous for their mature work; because many times, although not out-and-out terrible, such novels simply won't hold up to the "early masterpiece" hype of later years, or will contain diamonds in the rough that the author ends up polishing in later work, or sometimes are just so influential that they become blasé later in history, simply for all the ripoffs that came afterwards.

That's something you can honestly say about Ghostwritten too, although I found it more interesting than disappointing; that when all is said and done, the novel is essentially a British guy writing like Haruki Murakami, back in the late '90s before most English-speakers had heard of Murakami, making it not nearly the revelation anymore that I'm sure it was to Western audiences when it first came out. It's essentially what filmmaker Richard Linklater calls "vertical storytelling," a collection of tales that are mostly unrelated but with a series of fascinating synchronicity-style details, small decisions within some stories that will sometimes have devastating major consequences in others, with the chapters set around the world but especially in many Asian countries, and examining among other things the various stereotypical ways that Asians think of other Asians when white people aren't looking. All of these stories, though, have some sort of metaphysical or poetic element to them, and are written with an engaging mix of Asian minimalism and British fascination with language; one for example concerns a poltergeist in a yuppie apartment in Hong Kong, one a subway-bombing cult member hiding out from the cops in Okinawa, one a jazz-loving hipster teen in the middle of downtown Tokyo.

Ten years later, we've gotten a lot more used to these things -- metaphysical elements in our mainstream fiction, the influence of Asian minimalism on Western literature -- but when it first came out, seeing it in Ghostwritten I'm sure made a lot of people freak out in a pleasantly positive way, which I'm sure is how Mitchell gained his intense cult following to begin with, and what allowed him to go on and kick out three Booker nominees in a row after this one. And let's face it, even this novel isn't bad, even ten years later when many of its tropes have become a lot more common; even with this very first book of his, Mitchell displays a confidence in his material usually only seen in veteran authors, a relaxed assuredness with what is already experimental work, being written at a time when there were literally no precedents for it in English-language literature. Granted, I suspect at this point that his later books are going to be even better, and that readers not purposely trying to become Mitchell completists might want to actually skip this first one; then again, you might not, especially if your interest in weird lit is only a passing one, and if you mostly prefer the narrative feet of your stories planted firmly on realistic ground. I can definitely say, though, that I'm glad I read Ghostwritten; and I can also definitely say that I'm eagerly looking forward to his next, 2001's big breakthough hit number9dream, which hopefully I'll be tackling before too terribly long. (less)

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09/14/07

Kellan rated it:

Boston, December 12th, 2004

If you liked Cloud Atlas, pick up ghostwritten. And give it until page 38.

Shades of Murakami and Borges (both of whom briefly grace the pages) and Hornby (who doesn’t), a warm up for the pyrotechnic doppleganger genre switching of CA. But mostly its David Mitchell all over again (or really for the first time if you still believe in linear time).

Not as archly triumphant as CA and with one or two sour notes (I’d recommend fast fo...more

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04/24/07

Andy rated it:

bookshelves: readownedloved

recommends it for: who would i not?

David Mitchell is rumored to be a bit of a puzzle novelist in a post-modern kind of way--you read something fairly subtle in say, the tenth chapter that if you are a careful reader, will unlock some clue to a mystery or elusive event or person you encountered in the first few chapters. Even further, this occurs between Mitchell's novels (of which there are four, at the moment), which suggests almost a fictional interconnected alternate universe he is creating, in my mind a little akin to Faulkn...more

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08/02/08

Kris rated it:

Once again my busy teaching schedule has gotten in the way of my posting, so I'm going to attempt to catch up today with a series of briefer updates.

As I've intimated in my earlier Mitchell posts, ghostwritten has been my least favorite of the bunch - which still makes it one of the best books I've read all year. Years ago, I read a review of Number9Dream and was so intrigued that I went out and bought this earlier novel to tide me over until the new one came out in paperback. But a ...more Once again my busy teaching schedule has gotten in the way of my posting, so I'm going to attempt to catch up today with a series of briefer updates.

As I've intimated in my earlier Mitchell posts, ghostwritten has been my least favorite of the bunch - which still makes it one of the best books I've read all year. Years ago, I read a review of Number9Dream and was so intrigued that I went out and bought this earlier novel to tide me over until the new one came out in paperback. But a few pages into ghostwritten, I lost interest. Over the years I picked it up a hundred times, trying to get into it and failing. I kept feeling not-sucked-in by the opening story - the first few pages were somewhat vague and the character hard to visualize. When I finally realized my love for Mitchell, I turned to my shelf, happy to have saved the book for so many years and realized it was gone. I think I'd finally given up a bout a month earlier and sold it to the Strand for probably next-to-nothing.

But I found a new copy on my trip and dove in headfirst, pushing past those troublesome first few pages and happily discovering that the first story was, indeed, very exciting - all about a crazed monk who decides to poison the subway tunnels in Tokyo.

What follows is a series of essentially unconnected stories, each taking place in a different city, beginning in the Far Far East and moving steadily westward, through Hong Kong and Mongolia and Russia and on to London and eventually to a New York radio station. As with Mitchell's other books, there is no overt connection between the stories at first, but steadily the lives begin to overlap and the stories begin to connect together. All of this is absolutely amazingly done - not only are all the individual stories amazing in their own right, but they begin to take on new excitement when they overlap with one another (and, for real fans, with some of the characters from the later books!). Just to give you a sense of it, there are stories about a "non-corporeal being" stalking backpackers in Mongolia, an ancient tea-shop owner in Tibet, art theives in St. Petersburg, a ghostwriter in London... on and on.

So why didn't I love it? Well, the trouble began for me right with the final two or three chapters. There's a fantastic chapter about a physicist on an island off the coast of Ireland, which begins a strange apocalyptic thread that goes into a New York City radio station, as an artificial intelligence begins to run amock upon the globe - and while I appreciate some good crazy apocalypse stuff here and there, the ending was ultimately too science-fiction for me and I had trouble suspending the requisite disbelief - even though I really wanted to. The final chapter does some incredible things, but I never quite got back into the flow of the story the same way. Still, a good book - and I think for readers who are a little more comfortable with strange futuristic twists, it could even be totally fascinating.(less)

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12/01/07

Trish rated it:

Read in December, 2006

This was my first foray into David Mitchell, and I haven't made up my mind whether or not I'll give him a second go. He's unquestionably talented--he makes the various places and people that form the novel's mosaic vivid and unique, their voices and experiences distinct and (for the most part) compelling. The connections between stories are (for the most part) deft touches--an errant phone call, the repetition of the word "quasar," camphor trees, etc.

So what's not to like? ...more

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01/22/08

Robert Beveridge rated it:

bookshelves: cle-pub-lib, defenestrated

Read in February, 2004

David Mitchell, Ghostwritten (Random House, 1999)

Ghostwritten was one of the first books to hit my Amazon wish list back when I first set it up four years ago. I have no idea what inspired me to put it there, but having now finally read the thing, the question has gone from "why did I do this?" to "what on earth was I thinking?"

The story revolves (very slowly) around nine different characters whose lives interconnect. And while the characters themselves ar...more

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09/16/07

Martine rated it:

(review of isbn 0340739754)

bookshelves: british, modern-fiction, postmodern

Read in December, 2006

recommends it for: Murakami and Borges fans.

What a stunning debut. No, not all of the interconnected, non-linear stories in this "novel in nine parts" are successful (the Holy Mountain story, for instance, feels sketchy to me), but together they form a tremendously imaginative and ambitious web of ideas and situations, full of originality, knowledge and local colour. As usual with Mitchell, each story has its own tone of voice; the man's command of style and language is stupendous, and he uses it to good effect here. As usual, ...more

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12/30/08

Paula rated it:

bookshelves: novels

Read in January, 2009

recommended to Paula by: Juanita

I’ve become quite a fan of Mitchell’s. I loved Cloud Atlas and now much appreciate Ghostwritten, his first novel. Both novels employ the device of linked narratives very effectively. While CA progresses and then regresses through large swaths of time, the various narratives that make up Ghostwritten are roughly contemporaneous beginning at the time of the gas attacks in the Tokyo subways in 1995 and tracking into an apocalyptic proximate future. As for location in space, the action moves ...more

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11/23/07

Joe rated it:

(review of isbn 0679463046)

The concept of Ghostwritten is compelling: several unrelated, interconnected stories that somehow are suppose to create a whole. At first, part of the fun in reading Ghostwritten is being plunked in the middle of some interesting crisis in a character's life. You become fascinatingly absorbed in the tale and then suddenly you're unceremoniously removed from the character's somewhat unresolved story and plunked into the middle of another character crisis in another part of the world. Disoriented,...more The concept of Ghostwritten is compelling: several unrelated, interconnected stories that somehow are suppose to create a whole. At first, part of the fun in reading Ghostwritten is being plunked in the middle of some interesting crisis in a character's life. You become fascinatingly absorbed in the tale and then suddenly you're unceremoniously removed from the character's somewhat unresolved story and plunked into the middle of another character crisis in another part of the world. Disoriented, you read along sucked into this new tale only to have this happen to you again and again. It's jarring and throws off the momentum a bit, but keeps the novel fresh and exciting.
What makes this so much fun is unexpectedly stumbling across interconnections to characters from past stories that thread throughout. I found myself excited from anticipation when each new chapter began, looking out for the surprise connections. Because of this, I read the book slowly, savoring each new twist and turn wanting to make the read last. Mitchell is a good storyteller and sucks you in completely.

Perhaps in reading this so slowly I missed something. The last interesting chapter is London with the ghostwriter. The final few chapters fall apart, especially the New York City chapter. The DJ chatting with the Zookeeper was a complete "What the ...???" moment and when I read the last page I scratched my head and thought, "Did I miss something?" I didn't understand the point to having the stories interconnect outside of its entertainment value. I wasn't quite sure I "got" the big picture. I think the novel went in a full circle but I'm unsure.

It's enough to make me want to closely re-read the novel to see what I've missed but I don't think I really need to know that badly to compell me to re-read Ghostwritten. It's a fun read, full of wonderful visuals and lyrical writing but for me it wasn't a completely cohesive read. I give it three stars. Recommended, but expect to be somewhat disappointed with the ending.

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06/01/09

Dava B rated it:

(review of isbn 0340739754)

Read in June, 2009

I thought this was a superb first novel from David Mitchell. His choice of characters and places is eclectic and inspiring, as is his ability to link one character's experience to another's. The subtitle of this book is 'A Novel in Nine Parts' and that is really what I felt like at the end of the book, like I had read nine short stories that had elements of conditioning from each other. It was interesting to read this after 'Cloud Atlas', as I could see some of Mitchell's ideas that form the bas...more

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08/04/07

Jae rated it:

Read in March, 2007

This is the first book that I ever read, finished, started over at the beginning, and read straight through again. That's not to say it is the best book I've ever read, but dang it is good. I didn't want it to be over, and I wanted to go back through and make all the connections. I'm sure I'm still missing some.

Each of the stories in Ghostwritten could stand on their own as a short story, but they are so intricately woven together, in ways that matter and in ways that don't. Mitchell...more

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06/22/09

Stop added it

Read the STOP SMILING interview with author David Mitchell.

Q&A: David Mitchell
by Steve Finbow

David Mitchell’s most recent novel, Black Swan Green, was shortlisted for the 2006 Costa Novel Award, Quill Book Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region Best Book). His three previous novels — Ghostwritten, number9dream and Cloud Atlas — were hugely ambitious in scope, drawing comparisons to the works of Murakami Haruki and Italo Calvino. David Mitche...more

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06/10/09

Jessica rated it:

Read in June, 2009

I think this is the sort of book that really benefits from an immediate re-read, but it's a library book & I took so long getting through it the first time that I just want to give it back now.

I loved Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, and Ghostwritten is similar in that each chapter is a self-contained story that slyly links back to the other stories. These stories take place all over the world & in different eras, but none stands completely alone. I love that, but what I loved even more abou...more

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02/27/09

Bob rated it:

Read in March, 2009

Nine 50-page vignettes narrated by wildly divergent characters and each connected to the prior in ways sometimes subtle and tangential, sometimes more overtly plot-driven. The opening section, narrated by a Japanese young man, seems to be trying to outdo Murakami at his own game; thereafter it touches down everywhere from an international art theft ring to the kind of science fiction that makes you infer a lot instead of telling you.

Overall the persistence of loose ends at the clos...more

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04/24/07

Eliza rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: David Mitchell fans

This is a hard one... I want to love this book but I have to say I got bogged down in the final chapters...and I don't really understand, understand what happened. I mean, I get *what* happened I just didn't understand the tie-in to the bigger picture. I think this book requires a second read.

I also have to say that, being a David Mitchell fan, I could tell that this was his first book. I was good for a first book but his later work is more polished.

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12/19/08

Mari rated it:

bookshelves: literature-fiction

Read in December, 2008

recommended to Mari by: Don

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Sometimes language can't even read the music of meaning."

Tim chuckled up to the ceiling, "We're all ghostwriters, my boy. And it's not just about our memories. Our actions, too. We all think we're in control of our own lives, but really they're pre-ghostwritten by forces around us.

My first David Mitchell novel - and I must admit I loved it. Of course everyone has told me that this is "good" but Cloud Atlas is much better (and draws on a couple of the ...more Sometimes language can't even read the music of meaning."

Tim chuckled up to the ceiling, "We're all ghostwriters, my boy. And it's not just about our memories. Our actions, too. We all think we're in control of our own lives, but really they're pre-ghostwritten by forces around us.

My first David Mitchell novel - and I must admit I loved it. Of course everyone has told me that this is "good" but Cloud Atlas is much better (and draws on a couple of the same characters.) But as I haven't read CA yet, this has the favored spot in my heart right now. I've had several people refer to this book as a loosely connected collection of short stories, but it didn't read that way to me. Though the initial connections seem tenuous, as the stories play on, the themes get tighter - the effects of "random chance", the characters' reflections on the choices that led them to their current place, fate, love, music, lost opportunities. These are different people telling strikingly similar stories and hurtling toward an event unforeseen to most of them. The end almost comes confusingly fast - leaving the reader (or at least this reader) wondering what just happened? Is that what I thought just happened? The end is the only part that felt rushed.

There have been many comparisons to Murakami, though in some ways Mitchell's story is more tightly woven - yet missing some of the grander surreal innovations that Murakami is famous for. The ending, although rushed, is slightly more "wrapped up" than the Murakami stories I've read. Of course this was Mitchell's first book. I'll reserve judgment until I've read Cloud Atlas and Number9Dream which are both waiting on my shelf for me.

Mitchell weaves the music of chance (the drummer's band's name in "London") and also referenced in "Clear Island" while Liam plays piano (variations on "In a Sentimental Mood - another favorite.)

One of the best things about reading this (and many Murakami novels) is the frequent references to various jazz works. When Satoru (the jazz CD store clerk in Tokyo) said it was a Mal Waldron sort of day - I immediately remembered this:

Mal Waldron's "Left Alone." It says everything about the mood. These references made Tokyo my favorite chapter.(less)

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11/08/07

Jeremy rated it:

bookshelves: fiction-general

Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: everyone!

This was one of the quickest, yet amazingly well writen books I have read in years. Each of the nine characters is so compelling and different that when you get to the next one you feel torn between going back and rereading the part you just finished and pushing onwards. He also mixes a well-paced plot with wit and wisdom. I will definitely read this book again and again.

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"Sometimes John had recorded new compositions, or lines from his new poems. Sometimes he'd just record a busy night in The Green Man. Sometimes sheep, seals, skylarks, the wind turbine. If Liam were home there would be some Liam. The summer fair. The Fastnet Race. I would unfold my map of Clear Island. Those tapes prised the lid off homesickness and rattled out the contents, but always at the bottom was solace." More quotes...