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Centuries of June

Keith Donohue (Goodreads Author)

3.33 · Rating details · 494 ratings · 120 reviews

Centuries of June is a bold departure, a work of dazzling breadth and technical virtuosity.

Set in the bathroom of an old house just before dawn on a night in June, Centuries of June is a black comedy about a man who is attempting to tell the story of how he ended up on the floor with a hole in his head. But he keeps getting interrupted by a series of suspects—eight women l ...more

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Hardcover, 352 pages

Published May 31st 2011 by Crown (first published January 1st 2011)

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Deferred Gratification: 2011's Most Eagerly Awaited New Books

128 books — 405 voters

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Jul 20, 2011 Lauren rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, magical-realism, 2010s-fiction

Reading this book was like dissecting a Dali - surreal, fantastic, with small bits of recognizable traits from "real life" but otherwise, a dreamscape when time and space don't abide by the same rules. The book is a dying man's look back on history - through the eyes of eight women and a male "guide" that morphs from his late father to Samuel Beckett, to his living brother...

The man falls on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night... as he lays on the bathroom tile, people join him i ...more

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Jul 11, 2013 Michelle H rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

From www.thebookdorks.com

WEIRD. Centuries of June is just plain weird, but compellingly so. At times, it is laugh-out-loud funny and at others, it is simply surreal and hallucinatory. And I loved it.

The novel begins with our narrator landing on his bathroom floor bleeding profusely from a head wound which he acknowledges will make his floor “murder to clean.” Ha! As he attempts to recount how he ended up there, he is joined by a doppleganger of his father who sneezes feathers and subsists solely From www.thebookdorks.com

WEIRD. Centuries of June is just plain weird, but compellingly so. At times, it is laugh-out-loud funny and at others, it is simply surreal and hallucinatory. And I loved it.

The novel begins with our narrator landing on his bathroom floor bleeding profusely from a head wound which he acknowledges will make his floor “murder to clean.” Ha! As he attempts to recount how he ended up there, he is joined by a doppleganger of his father who sneezes feathers and subsists solely on whiskey. During his brief forays out of the bathroom, he stops to have conversations with his cat (who sometimes talks back) and peek in on the eight naked women tangled in his bed a la Gustav Klimt’s The Virgin. The narrator, let’s call him Jack, has no recollection of how he ended up brained on the bathroom tile, why he’s hosting a bevy of sleeping beauties in his bed, or just why all the clocks in his house have somehow stopped.

Each of those naked lovelies awakens and heads off with her weapon of choice to attack Jack in the tiny lavatory. Dad, or let’s call him Samuel Beckett, prevents these murderous rampages by allowing each to tell her story of degradation at Jack’s hands.Their ire dissipates as one by one, each of the girls — a former slave, a cave-dwelling native, a cross-dressing ship’s mate, a proclaimed witch, a gold-seeking prospector, and the like — explains why she feels Jack is the cause of her ruin. Jack, with no recollection of being involved with any of these women, begins to feel some guilt for perhaps mistreating them in his past incarnations.

Centuries of June is full of subtle and not-so-subtle allusions to Waiting for Godot, Tristram Shandy, the Marx Brothers, and the Salem Witch Trials. If my library digital loan of this weren’t up tomorrow, I’d definitely begin an immediate reread because I liked it so much and rushed through it to get to the end. I did find the ending a tad anticlimactic as I’d already figured out some of the novel’s twists, but I didn’t feel that detracted from its beauty as a whole.

You know, the last book I read in the magical realism genre, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow, was the last decent book I’ve read. Paired with this, I think I now have a new favorite type of literature. I was looking for something different to read and this was definitely IT. ...more

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Aug 30, 2014 El rated it liked it

Shelves: 21st-centurylit, fantasy

Ever read a book that takes almost entirely inside a bathroom? I can't say I ever had. But now I have! Inside the bathroom is a young man who wakes up naked and bleeding on the bathroom tile, an old man in a bathrobe sitting on the tub, coughing feathers, and one by one a series of women come from the bedroom to tell their stories. If that's not bizarre enough, each of the women comes from a different century. There's a victim of the Salem witch trials, a slave in New Orleans, a woman who was pr Ever read a book that takes almost entirely inside a bathroom? I can't say I ever had. But now I have! Inside the bathroom is a young man who wakes up naked and bleeding on the bathroom tile, an old man in a bathrobe sitting on the tub, coughing feathers, and one by one a series of women come from the bedroom to tell their stories. If that's not bizarre enough, each of the women comes from a different century. There's a victim of the Salem witch trials, a slave in New Orleans, a woman who was present for the World Series in 1903 when the Pirates actually did something cool, etc. All of their stories are similar in one way - they've been betrayed, spurned, hurt. And they want their stories heard now.

Like Donohue's first and second books (The Stolen Child and Angels of Destruction), there is an element of the fantastical in this story. Donohue writes literary fiction but with a touch of fantasy that almost makes complete sense, like it could be pretty realistic. A cat named Harpo who talks some smack? Sure, why not. It works.

In a sense, this book is also a mystery. Why is the main character lying naked on the floor of his bathroom at the start of the novel? Why is he bleeding? Will he ever be able to tell his story? And, really, what's with the creepy guy sitting on the bathtub? The mystery itself slowly unravels, and by slowly I mean it unravels before your eyes across many centuries. All the pieces start to fall into place, you start to get it. It's a fun story.

I think it could have been even better, however. Less choppy in parts. I had a chance to go to Donohue's reading and book signing when this book came out and if I remember correctly he talked briefly about wanting to give these women voices, which he did. But he also did the same thing a lot of male writers do when writing women - he oversexualized them. I feel the book could have done with a lot less of that. Women can have voices, even angry voices, that don't just have to do with sex.

But I continue to read Donohue because I like when Pittsburgh people go on to do real things. He might not be in Pittsburgh anymore, but it makes its way into his writing, so I think this is still his home. I see he has a new book coming out, or it is out, or something. I look forward to reading it just as much as I've looked forward to these first three. I just keep hoping he'll write one I love as much as I loved The Stolen Child. ...more

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May 27, 2011 Audra (Unabridged Chick) rated it liked it

Shelves: mood-dark-and-twisted, place-california, secret-identities, skeletons-in-the-closet, heroine-amazing, mood-evocative, place-pittsburgh

This unique novel mixes surreal lit fic and dreamy historical fiction to make a (mostly) compelling story about love, loss, responsibility, and moving on. The reader and the unnamed narrator are plunged immediately -- from the first paragraph -- into the same confusing mystery: what happened to him and who are all these people in his bathroom?

Strangely I feel ambivalent toward this novel even though it hits so many elements I like in a book: fascinating heroines, literary references, story-withi This unique novel mixes surreal lit fic and dreamy historical fiction to make a (mostly) compelling story about love, loss, responsibility, and moving on. The reader and the unnamed narrator are plunged immediately -- from the first paragraph -- into the same confusing mystery: what happened to him and who are all these people in his bathroom?

Strangely I feel ambivalent toward this novel even though it hits so many elements I like in a book: fascinating heroines, literary references, story-within-a-story, and interesting locales (including Pittsburgh!). My coolness toward this book is due to the narrator and his guide-to-the-afterlife. Both felt very artificial and joke-y to me; and while the guide can be excused, I suppose, since he's mythic and otherworldly, the narrator was very much real and yet, he felt flat, hollow, and boring.

Visited by seven women, all unlucky in love and life, the narrator is regaled with their stories, which includes a Native American who fell in love with a shapeshifting bear; a victim of the Salem witch trials; a slave saving for her freedom; a gold prospector in the mid 1800s; and a 1950s housewife eager to rid of her husband. The women and their stories were the best part of the novel, and I just loved their interludes. I had less patience for the sexualized treatment of the seven women: it felt a bit unnecessary especially since the women themselves rarely were the sexual instigators. They were the recipients of male attention -- some passive, some active -- that had an edge of violence that made me frustrated. The women were confronting the narrator but in the end, I didn't feel like they got the justice they wanted.

There's a cinematic quality to the writing which is also lovely when it works and grating when it doesn't, but I will say this novel occupied my thoughts constantly, and I rushed to finish it. This is another summer read that has some oomph for those who want more than fluff but not something too heavy; I suspect this would also make a great book club or group read. ...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Chris - Quarter Press Editor rated it it was ok

I was so sad as I read this. I LOVE Donohue's use of language and writing style in general. He makes me angry how talented he is; however, this book is nowhere near as good as THE STOLEN CHILD--it's not even as good as ANGEL OF DESTRUCTION. Much as I love his writing, his novels are on a downward slope. I really, REALLY hope his next one is on the incline, or I'm going to have to stop telling people he's one of my favorite authors.... Sad day.

This one might not have bothered me as much if it had ...more

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Oct 01, 2020 Bandit rated it liked it · review of another edition

This was the only Donohue’s book I’ve not read. The other four I enjoyed very much, so obviously I was very excited when our library finally acquired this one digitally and checked it out immediately. This one was…different. In fact, had I not known for a fact it was the same author, maybe I wouldn’t have even guessed it. Maybe because this is an earlier work and Donohue was still finding his way. Maybe it’s just one of those random dramatic departures form the norm. Not that there is such a thi This was the only Donohue’s book I’ve not read. The other four I enjoyed very much, so obviously I was very excited when our library finally acquired this one digitally and checked it out immediately. This one was…different. In fact, had I not known for a fact it was the same author, maybe I wouldn’t have even guessed it. Maybe because this is an earlier work and Donohue was still finding his way. Maybe it’s just one of those random dramatic departures form the norm. Not that there is such a thing as norm with this author specifically, but his later works tend to lean heavier and heavier into the realm of dark fantasy, supernatural tinged sort of tales and this one was more along the lines of…well, what was it, a sort of metaphysical ghost story? Something like that. A Christmas Carol for a man with a skull injury, wherein he is lying on his bathroom floor exsanguinating and gets visited by a small parade of women, eight to be precise, with stories to tell. Each of their tales is representative of some era of American past, reflecting such epitomes of American culture as genocide of Natives, slavery and baseball. Each of this Scheherazades has been wronged by a man in some way or another. There’s also an older man, who may be some sort of a combination of the man’s brother and the playwright Beckett. So it’s a story made up of stories, a quilted narrative, and it works as such, though you can never quite forget of the entire tapestry due to the heavy intermissions and light interjections, mainly featuring man on the floor and Beckett’s badinage, but also random chatter by all involved. A peculiar tale peculiarly told, this one takes a while to get into. For all its cleverness and some originality, there are some questionable choices here. There’s a good chance it been published nowadays in these rampantly politically correct times, it would probably be accused of cultural appropriation many times over, the author dares to give voice to minorites of minorites over and over again. I don’t care about that, frankly, that’s what fiction is for. I liked the individual ladies and the way the author made them all distinct and original. But every woman a victim of man’s vanity, greed, pride, a variety of deadly sins really….that’s pretty sad. And the saddest thing about it is that the man is never going to learn his lesson, because…this is the tale of reincarnation and apparently reincarnation erases all memory. Badoomtz. Now isn’t that a kicker. In Christmas Carol these visitations at least had a moral purpose. What is it all for here? Just venting? Maybe. Just like this review in some ways. At any rate, there you have it, a competently written novel with many good components arranged together into stylistically and tonally messy, questionably themed and moralled reincarnation ditty. A book I really wanted to love, like dreams of eternal summer, but somehow didn’t quite get there. Certainly this isn’t the book to judge the author’s talent by, more along the lines of one off. Interesting read, but trying at times and disappointing in some ways. Not sure magic realism is meant to collide with actual realism this way. The completist in me is pleased though. ...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Ryan rated it it was amazing

When Jack falls, naked, in his bathroom, he cracks his head open and starts to bleed to death. When he comes to, he isn't quite sure what's going on, other than the fact there are eight naked women lying in his bed. Confused and disoriented he goes back to the bathroom and meets an old man, who he thinks is his deceased father. Over the course of an untold amount of time, though the clock never changes from 4:52 am, Jack is visited by seven of those women while he is still in the bathroom. All s When Jack falls, naked, in his bathroom, he cracks his head open and starts to bleed to death. When he comes to, he isn't quite sure what's going on, other than the fact there are eight naked women lying in his bed. Confused and disoriented he goes back to the bathroom and meets an old man, who he thinks is his deceased father. Over the course of an untold amount of time, though the clock never changes from 4:52 am, Jack is visited by seven of those women while he is still in the bathroom. All seven of them try to kill him, only to fail and start narrating a story that somehow makes Jack think he is in some way involved. Only once the last story is told, does Jack start to realize what has happened.

I don't even know where to begin on this one, but a few adjectives do come to mind. Quirky, strange, fantastical, beautiful, and brilliant are a few of them that rise to the surface of my brain. Thankfully, I'm not bleeding out on the bathroom floor, otherwise this review would never get done. This book, and those like it, are the reason I love to read. Having the privilege to read a story that is so well crafted and articulated is one of the great pleasures in life.

Jack and the women are all intriguing characters, when they have your attention, they never let it go. The women span five hundred years of American history and through a twist of fate, they all have ties to Jack. Their stories are tragic and full of heartache and death, but they all have an unique feel to them that makes them standout from each other. The stories range from the mythical to the femme fatale, all of them are captivating and original. There is a lyrical quality to them, so much so, that at times I felt as if I was sitting by a campfire, listening to a bard tell the history of my people. I felt for all of them and the men in their lives, the men Jack used to be.

This was a beautiful story that mixed reincarnation, rebirth, second chances, and the everlasting struggle between love and hate. It's the tale of the past, present, and future all colliding into one man's life and where it goes from here. ...more

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Aug 23, 2011 Tevya rated it liked it

Centuries of June is set in the bathroom of Jack's home. Jack finds himself dying on his bathroom floor and is visited by a trail of women who all have tales to weave for him. These tales take place over a course of time spanning from pre-Colombian times to present, including stories from the Salem witch trials, Southern Gothic, and Native American folklore and mythology. Jack begins inserting himself into the stories, and he finds that the women seem to be familiar to him. While the stories the Centuries of June is set in the bathroom of Jack's home. Jack finds himself dying on his bathroom floor and is visited by a trail of women who all have tales to weave for him. These tales take place over a course of time spanning from pre-Colombian times to present, including stories from the Salem witch trials, Southern Gothic, and Native American folklore and mythology. Jack begins inserting himself into the stories, and he finds that the women seem to be familiar to him. While the stories themselves seem to be unrelated, they are tied together in the end.

I was intrigued by the concept of Centuries of June from reading the synopsis. I am new to Keith Donohue's work, and that also drew me to the book as I am challenging myself to branch out and read new authors this year. While his writing is definitely not my usual style, I found Centuries of June to be well written and darkly humorous. The plot felt confusing at times, and although I found the stories told by the women to be entertaining, I found myself bored and distracted while reading. Personally, I would have preferred to read the women's stories as short stand-alone novellas. However, I am impressed by the creativity it took to weave the stories together in this manner. I did enjoy elements of the book, and if I'm 100% honest with myself, I'll admit that I most probably would have enjoyed Centuries of June more had I not been staring down a stack of must-read sequels to some of my most favorite books.

As a lover of books, I have to comment on how beautiful the book itself is. The cover is mysterious and alluring, the book feels good in the hand, and the pages are wonderful. They are thick, with roughened, uneven natural edges. (Yeah, I know - I'm a total geek, but I was so impressed with the look and feel of the actual book, I couldn't not comment on it! It's rare that I find a book that makes me want to open it just because of the beauty and feel of the pages.) You're laughing - I can tell. But seriously, it's a beautiful book! ...more

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Mar 19, 2018 Matt Fitz rated it really liked it

A mixture of folklore, myth, surrealism, magical realism, and American history as a man wakes up laying on the floor with a hole in the back of his head with unknown origin. As he tries to assess both the cause of his pain and the mess he has to clean up he is confronted by a series of 8 women who may wish him harm and a man who looks like his dad or a famous writer. Not a good book for people who need literal fiction. If you'd like to "read" a Dali painting then this may be the book for you. Fa ...more

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Jan 09, 2019 Amarinske rated it really liked it

Shelves: english, adult, 4-star, read-2019, magical-realism, historical

4.5 out of 5 stars

A magically strange story about love and dreaming and finding your way in life.
We travel through five centuries of US history (on a night in June just before dawn). This is done with a bunch of different voices and through the perspectives of nine characters.
The structure of the book creates a nice, dreamy, darkly comedic atmosphere with a mystery in it. It's haunting and hilarious. The atmosphere and storytelling create a bit of a ghost story feel, but not as much creepy as ju ...more

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May 18, 2014 Sheri rated it really liked it

Shelves: male-female-power-sex-attractivenes, fantasy

I picked this up because I liked the cover and really had no idea what I was going to find. Essentially it is a collection of short stories linked together by the main character Jack. In general I don’t like short stories, but something about this collection worked well for me. It has a bit of Dicken’s Christmas Carol in that the reader (or at least this reader) is unsure if Jack is dreaming or hallucinating and wondering what kind of lesson he will have learned when he wakes in the morning.

Of c I picked this up because I liked the cover and really had no idea what I was going to find. Essentially it is a collection of short stories linked together by the main character Jack. In general I don’t like short stories, but something about this collection worked well for me. It has a bit of Dicken’s Christmas Carol in that the reader (or at least this reader) is unsure if Jack is dreaming or hallucinating and wondering what kind of lesson he will have learned when he wakes in the morning.

Of course, unlike Scrooge, Jack does not get his second chance; he will not wake in the morning and by the time he is reborn he will have forgotten all of these previous eight lives. Although, the irony is in the wondering of whether he will become the cat in his ninth (talking Harpo is one of my favorite characters).

Each of the women that we meet through the night represent one of Jack’s former lives and take the reader through a series of historical incidents from early Native American tribal life to 1950s scotch drinking and gun weilding Bunny. The stories are all rather stereotypical and emblematic of their era; some are more entertaining than others, but they are all fairly well done.

For some reason the bathroom scenes reminded me of the book/movie Jumanji. I kept half expecting them to roll a die to determine what kind of weapon the next girl was going to bring in. Donohue himself made two dramaturgical references that I could appreciate: Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (which I find absolutely excrutiating and not funny in the least bit even when I saw it performed in London by Ben Kingsley) and Checkov’s adage about the gun shown in Act I being shot in Act III.

There were a few good quotes on human nature:
“We must be shown evidence of our pain in order to feel the concomitant sorrow, but our joy comes and goes as it pleases.” and
“What are we but the sum of our desires?” and
“seemed more concerned with what he had lost than with what was still in hand, and he struck me in the moment as somewhat emblematic of the human condition, not to read too much into basic greed and regret.”

Overall it was a nice blend of fairy tale and myth.
...more

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Sep 16, 2011 drey rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction-contemporary, 2011-reads

Keith Donohue is a new-to-me author, though I have The Stolen Child sitting on my shelves (and it's been sitting there for a while now). But I couldn't turn down the opportunity to check out his latest, Centuries of June. I mean, the blurb had me at "black comedy about a man who is attempting to tell the story of how he ended up on the floor with a hole in his head"... How do you turn down something like that?

I will admit to reading this slowly at first. Really slowly... In fact, it probably too ...more

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Jun 29, 2013 Wendy Hines rated it liked it

This has got to be one of the strangest books I have ever read. Nonetheless, it is very addictive. It opens with "Jack" watching his blood flow onto the bathroom tiles. He's hit his head with half of his naked body in the bathroom and half in the hallway. He momentarily thinks how regretful he would be if someone found him in his current situation. His pain ebbs and that is when his departed father appears sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

Jack immediately feels better and is able to stand. He ...more

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Jun 01, 2011 Bill rated it liked it

Really like this author, and this was a good book, but his debut novel, The Stolen Child, was so spectacular, and his second, Angels of Destruction, so close to that level, that this one pales just a bit by comparison. But just a bit! The great thing about this one, for me, was that there are so many stories included from so many different points in history. It's kind of like seven short historical novellas in one book. It begins with a man waking up on his bathroom floor, totally disoriented an ...more

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Nov 03, 2011 Kelly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, historical, inspiration, spiritual, love, fiction, lit, moving, supernatural, surrealism

It's been a few weeks and I still cannot fully express how much I loved this book and why. It's like asking a 2 year old to explain dark matter...impossible. Irrespective of being a grown ass woman who knows how to use her words, I just can't put together a bunch in such a way that you want to buy this book. It could also be the lack of serotonin and an abundance of chocolate. Either way, do me a favor, just buy the damn book. And if my vulgar demand isn't enough, just read this small excerpt fr ...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Lee Razer rated it really liked it

Shelves: magical-realism

Having read all of two novels by Donohue now, with a third about to be teed up, I can say I really like this author. He's a smart cookie who has also got imagination and a sense of humor, and as a novelist at least he lives in a spirit filled world. He mixes absurdist whimsy with realist melancholy in a way that really appeals to me though I readily imagine not to everyone. Would it be absurd to compare his novels to the music of The Smiths here? Well, I won't yet, but an analogy is tickling the ...more

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Jul 03, 2011 Kevin Farrell rated it liked it

This booked is packed with stories, each told by a woman from a different era in history. The audience is a young man who has apparently just died a violent death. That is all I am going to tell you. None of it makes sense until the end. Was it worth the trip? Not to me.

I can recommend this book for wonderful writing, interesting characters and great stories. What it lacked for me was some understanding of how they were supposed to fit together. This is not a fault of how it is written. This is ...more

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May 07, 2015 Billie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, favorites, 2016-list-challenge

I absolutely loved just about every second if this book. I loved the characters, I loved the story, I loved the end. All good things in this interesting, historical tale.

The story is told from different POVs and each one is totally believable, as are the actual stories they tell. There is violence; there is sex, revenge, and sadness. This story/stories are just SO GOOD.

I read this book for my yearly challenge - this one was a book with the month you were born in the title. With this book, and f ...more

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Sep 28, 2018 Alexi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite-reads

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

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May 03, 2011 Pam marked it as to-read

Shelves: taking-a-break

Won a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads!! Just started reading it, and not to get ahead of my self, but it's off to a pretty good start =) ...more

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Sep 07, 2018 Carol Ann rated it it was amazing

Wow!!! I nearly put it down but persevered. Glad I did! It became very absorbing. A magical tale married with grief, regret, fantasy and humor. Loved it. Love Keith’s writings.

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Oct 09, 2018 Janet rated it it was amazing

Keith Donohue is the absolute tops in writing this decade. Amazing characters and story lines.

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Sep 15, 2017 Libbie Buchele rated it liked it · review of another edition

Not a madcap romp; not funny

Billed as a madcap romp. More like a strange collection of short stories. It is an odd book, and I was annoyed by the female characters. The author has them telling their own stories, but he doesn't know how to speak in a woman's voice. All the woman sounded like what a man thinks a women sounds like. The bear woman falls in love with a man who rapes her. Jane is offered up like a plaything and is fine with this. This was a fantasy written by a man disguised as a book ...more

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Nov 05, 2016 Jeanette rated it liked it

the stories themselves would have been better without the bizarre framework that was intended to hold them together

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Mar 22, 2017 Mike rated it it was ok

Donohue's 1st effort at writing a novel was very weak. if I had read this initially, I would have missed his excellent 2nd and 3rd works ...more

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Jul 30, 2017 Judy Wiebe rated it liked it

An interesting collection of stories from multiple centuries, all linked to one man. It took a while to get the drift, but eventually it all made sense.

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Mar 23, 2011 Sally rated it it was amazing

Centuries of June by Keith Donohue

It sorely grieved me to put this book down after turning the last page. It is as captivating and enthralling as Keith Donohue’s first book, The Stolen Child. Donohue is a master storyteller, and he proves it yet again in this latest book. His talent is evident through his use of language, weaving a tale that keeps the reader spellbound.
Centuries of June begins in the narrator’s bathroom, which is the main stage for the central plot and all the subplots. His us Centuries of June by Keith Donohue

It sorely grieved me to put this book down after turning the last page. It is as captivating and enthralling as Keith Donohue’s first book, The Stolen Child. Donohue is a master storyteller, and he proves it yet again in this latest book. His talent is evident through his use of language, weaving a tale that keeps the reader spellbound.
Centuries of June begins in the narrator’s bathroom, which is the main stage for the central plot and all the subplots. His use of language, both high and low, allow the reader to understand the various points-of-view, as told through the voices of the many women the narrator encounters throughout the novel. Donohue easily transforms the small lavatory into a theatre of stars, some of whom are recognizable from history and some who are not.
Donohue’s characters vary from the earthy to the sophisticated, but are never simplistic. Their personalities are individualistic, but connected to each other. Their interactions allow them to come to life, fully formed. Each has a story to tell, and through those stories, the reader thus comes to understand the raconteur with all his idiosyncrasies. What ties the subplots together is the relationship of each to the narrator, who seems as clueless as the audience. Together, the reader and the narrator, learn the lessons and histories of a man who is searching to understand his own place in the world, a world that has lost all meaning. Only by traveling over time and space, within the confines of one room, the bath, can he hope to find out who he is, where he belongs, and why he exists. One wonders if he will find his path, or will he be too late?
Keith Donohue has once again woven a tale of intrigue, action, and empathy into a masterful novel, which is sure to please almost any reader. There is action and mystery behind every character, which is only divulged as each one tells her account of the circumstances of her life. The reader will fall in love with the individuals and the obstacles they encounter, finding satisfaction in the conclusions the chronicler draws from them.
It was a pleasure to spend time with Donohue’s characters, getting to know them with an intimacy that many authors struggle to find. The author seems to convey that familiarity with ease. He draws from a sense of confidence which is transmitted through the voices of his characters’ personae. Bravo, Keith! This is another well-written and excellently scripted novel to captivate and capture the audience’s attention. What a lovely read.
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Jun 30, 2011 Gladys McGuillicutty rated it really liked it

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Crown Publishers to review Centuries of June by Keith Donohue. Although Mr. Donohue has published two other novels, The Stolen Child and Angels of Destruction, I was not familiar with him. I am always thrilled and excited to read new authors so I readily accepted.
It is difficult in this age of instant gratification and self publishing to find original and intriguing stories. You know how it is you pick up a book and start reading an instantly know you ha A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Crown Publishers to review Centuries of June by Keith Donohue. Although Mr. Donohue has published two other novels, The Stolen Child and Angels of Destruction, I was not familiar with him. I am always thrilled and excited to read new authors so I readily accepted.
It is difficult in this age of instant gratification and self publishing to find original and intriguing stories. You know how it is you pick up a book and start reading an instantly know you have read this story before except instead of Miami it was set in Milan and instead of the protagonist being Joe its Juan. Oh honestly I don’t blame the authors, especially if they are avid readers, it’s just a natural progress to begin incorporating other stories within your own. Not so with this story. He did incorporate other stories but he made them his own by entwining them into his own tale.
I began reading Centuries of June by Keith Donohue and immediately the movie began playing in my mind. I love it when an author can create a story so vivid I loose all sense of space and time and this is exactly what Mr. Donohue accomplished I had instantly cast each player as they appeared and I could see in my mind’s eye the whole scene play out.
A young man struck in the head and the 7 women who visit him through his stupefied state. The old man who protected and helped him through the journeys of his mind and who and what was he really? Each visit opened more questions with little resolve, each ghostly and beautiful visitor adding to the mystery as well as the question as to why our main character was bludgeoned in his own bathroom. The more you read the more you try to decipher who the old man is and why is he there, why are these women all trying to kill our poor architect and who is the woman asleep in the bed facing the wall.
Mr. Donohue’s writing style kept me turning the page and his story kept me enthralled. His dark humor and storytelling abilities kept me on the edge of my seat waiting for the punch-line. He took me into that cold tiled bathroom and then carried me from primeval forests of the pacific northwest through the gold rush and on into the early 20th century reminding me of the pain and suffering women have lived through to give me the freedoms I have today. More importantly he told the story of the man’s own insecurity and strife.
I thoroughly enjoyed my romp through the centuries with Mr. Donohue and his rough and primal ghosts. I highly recommend this to those with an adventurous spirit and an open mind.

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Sep 03, 2011 J.M. Cornwell rated it really liked it

Good clear writing, confusing plot.

It is the middle of the night and Harry finds himself on the bathroom floor with a hole in the back of his head. When he gets up off the floor, he faces an old man who seems very familiar and yet he cannot place how he knows the old man. One good thing about the old man is that he keeps a Tlingit woman from bashing in Harry's skull. In order to explain why, Yeikoo.shk tells a story about her husband, a man who could transform into a bear.

Although Harry cannot Good clear writing, confusing plot.

It is the middle of the night and Harry finds himself on the bathroom floor with a hole in the back of his head. When he gets up off the floor, he faces an old man who seems very familiar and yet he cannot place how he knows the old man. One good thing about the old man is that he keeps a Tlingit woman from bashing in Harry's skull. In order to explain why, Yeikoo.shk tells a story about her husband, a man who could transform into a bear.

Although Harry cannot understand why his watch, why all the clocks in his house, have stopped at the same time, he has more trouble understanding why the old man and the women, each of whom tries to hit him in the head with some lethal object, are in his bathroom.

Harry thought the seven bicycles on his lawn when he arrived home that day was strange, as were the eight women in his bed, but seven women intent on killing him and then telling their stories in his bathroom is the first volley of strange. There is so much more to come.

It is hard to decide what to make of Keith Donohue intends with his latest novel. While it is entertaining, Centuries of June is also confusing. Is the novel a psychological thriller, a whodunit, or a story about the way men hurt and disappoint women through the ages? There is really no way to tell. To add more confusion, what is the old man’s purpose and why is he so interested in Harry’s tale of the seven bicycles or in keeping Harry from being smashed in the head?

While the motive of the story remains hidden, one thing is obvious—Donohue knows how to write an engrossing tale. In this case, he pens nine engrossing tales. Each of the women is a complete individual and engaging in her own homicidal way, not that they do not have issue with men, and obviously with Harry. I was as confused as I was enchanted and enthralled by Donohue’s tales, and therein lies part of the problem.

The writing is excellent, an effortless and easy read with a dark heart—seven dark hearts—and Harry’s situation completely draws the reader in. The payoff comes at the end of the novel with one last story, another tale set in June in a woman’s life, a woman who was part of the tangle of bodies on Harry’s beds and she knows Harry intimately. Centuries of June is an elaborately wrapped package with a marvelous Easter egg at the center of a complex knot of emotions and motives and regret, and it is well worth reading.
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Jun 27, 2011 Debra Martin rated it really liked it

Copy provided by Goldberg McDuffie Communications, NYC.

CENTURIES OF JUNE is the story of one man’s journey when he’s confronted with haphazardness of life. The book opens with a man, we later learn his name is Jack, who somehow falls in the bathroom and hits his head. From an awkward position on the bathroom floor, he watches helplessly as “a scarlet river seeped into the grout.” It is a compelling opening and I was curious to see what the author would offer up next.

Mr. Donahue tells an intrigu ...more

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About Keith Donohue

Keith Donohue

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Keith Donohue is an American novelist. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he earned his B.A. and M.A. from Duquesne University and his Ph.D. in English from The Catholic University of America.

Currently he is Director of Communications for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the grant-making arm of the U. S. National Archives in Washington, DC. Until 1998 he worke ...more

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“The bed in which we spend a third of our lives functions as a kind of protective haven for the true self, the subconscious refuge from the assault of the external world. The bed becomes the restorative womb, where the imagination is nurtured while our resting bodies are safe.” — 4 likes

“He put his life on hold as he waited for his life to begin.” — 1 likes

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