William Giraldi

Smart, opinionated, I must add this book to my overflowing library. I complain about uncommitted lackluster book reviews, not Giraldi. He has something to say and strong ways of saying it. Nathaniel Rich reviews the book in the New York Times and the first paragraph is exemplary:

"If literature, as William Giraldi writes in American Audacity, is “the one religion worth having,” then Giraldi is our most tenacious revivalist preacher, his sermons galvanized by a righteous exhortative energy, a mastery of the sacred texts and — unique in contemporary literary criticism — an enthusiasm for moralizing in defense of high standards. “Do I really expect Americans to sit down with ‘Adam Bede’ or ‘Clarissa’ after all the professional and domestic hurly-burly of their day?” he asks in an essay bemoaning “Fifty Shades of Grey.” “Pardon me, but yes, I do.” The only insincerity there is the request for pardon: Giraldi is defiantly, lavishly unforgiving."… (mere)

unique in its genre (dark thriller), written with crystal clear sentences, following a Tarantino like string of violent events that seem unconnected and do not always make sense, until one arrives at a spell-binding, harmonious ending.

The story opens with a mystery – three kids in a remote village in Alaska have been brutally killed by hungry wolves. The mother of the third child approaches a wolf expert (Core), whose life is at a dead end – wife paralysed on her death bed, daughter estranged living her own life in far-away Alaska. It is initially not clear to Core what the bereft mother Medora wants: the bones of her son? Core guesses she wants a tooth for a tooth and promises to hunt down the pack of wolves responsible for this killing spree, also for Medora to have something to show to her husband when he returns from his war in the desert. Soon enough Core locates the pack of hungry wolves, but he fails to kill one of them. He returns to the cabin in the remote Alaskan village, only to discover the body of the boy in the basement, and Medora gone. This leads to some fruitless investigation jointly with a local Police Officer, Marium. Then the husband returns and a killing spree starts. Marium and Core join hands chasing both Medora and Slone (her husband). Will they succeed in locating the mother before she is supposedly killed by her irate husband? Lots of snow, cold, shamanic characters, wolves and four wheel cars ahead… and killings galore.

One reviewer called this novel masculine in the extreme – wild, evil, dark, violent, driven by primal emotions. Yet it was a refreshing read after finishing a novel without any male characters (Matrix by Lauren Groff). For a novel in the snow-clad expanses of Alaska, there is a lot of sharp and witty dialogue. A gem.… (mere)

If you read the New York Times Book Review, the New York Book Review, the London Book Review, or even Slate, you've read this kind of intelligent critical work before. Giraldi is unusually good at it, and his work is distinguished by a passion that often goes right up to the edge of sympathy without quite going beyond. He's very smart, and he cares a lot. I particularly enjoyed his essay on Harper Lee, whom he believes was obviously manipulated into the release of an early book she had no plans to release while she was in full possession of herself. On the whole, however, I'm already well served by reading the work of a wide variety of critics, and didn't gain a lot by the intensive focus on this particular one.… (mere)