Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Crying Wolf’

Beginnings

Sunday is for beginnings, where we take a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. Since the subject of college novels came up this week, here’s the beginning of my third campus venture (following Hard Rain and Revolution #9) – Crying Wolf:

One should not avoid one’s tests, although they are perhaps the most dangerous game one could play and are in the end tests which are taken before ourselves and before no other judge. (Beyond Good and Evil, section 41) – Introduction to the syllabus for Philosophy 322, Superman and Man: Nietzsche and Cobain (Professor Uzig)

A rolled-up newspaper spun through the air, defining place. What kind of place? The kind of place often described as idyllic, where a boy on a bicycle still tossed the paper onto lawns and porches, sometimes over actual picket fences, where the newspaper still brought news.

Hard Rain

Hard Rain, which I think of as the first of my college novels (with Revolution #9 and Crying Wolf) – mostly because they all have some or a lot of scenes on campus – is on sale for $1.99 until 5/22. $1.99! With inflation that isn’t even money! Hard Rain is almost certainly the first time the first Woodstock music festival was an important plot element in a novel. Here’s the author photo from the original back cover (thanks to MM).

Beginnings

On Sunday we do beginnings, taking a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. PA has written a few novels where college plays a role, but perhaps the most college-centered is Crying Wolf. Here’s the start:

One should not avoid one’s tests, although they are perhaps the most dangerous game one could play and are in the end tests which are taken before ourselves and before no other judge. (Beyond Good and Evil, Section 41)

– Introduction to the syllabus, Philosophy 322 (Superman and Man: Nietzsche and Cobain), Prof. Uzig.

(Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal: “Peter Abrahams, in his terrific 10th novel, “Crying Wolf,” tells a riveting story of a time as menacing as any: the present. Inverness, though, the small New England school where an out-of-state scholarship freshman named Nat tries to make his mark, seems idyllic: a frequent location site for filmmakers in need of an ideal college campus. The idyll grows stranger when Nat is befriended by Izzie and Grace, beautiful twins in whose wealthy milieu Nat is a fish out of water. The twins hatch a scheme to solve Nat’s money problems, an ill-conceived caper that turns ugly when it converges with the deluded plans of a drug-addled campus thief. “Crying Wolf” unfolds brilliantly, in sequences made all the more compelling by nuance and precise detail. Mr. Abrahams captures all sorts of voices in all kinds of rooms: the razor-edged banter at the twins’ family dinner table, the heady talk in the philosophy class of a Nietzsche-obsessed professor, the egoistic mental ramblings of a thief who recites infomercial babble like spiritual truth. A book as smart and gripping as “Crying Wolf” makes any year memorable.”)

Beginnings (More)

On Sunday we’ve been doing beginnings – all the Chet and Bernies (as part of Chetspeak) – and now taking on all the Peter Abrahams novels in chronological order. Here, from 2000, #10 – the beginning of CRYING WOLF:

One should not avoid one’s tests, although they are perhaps the most dangerous game one could play and are in the end tests which are taken before ourselves and before no other judge. (Beyond Good and Evil, Section 41)

– Introduction to the syllabus, Philosophy 322 (Superman and Man: Nietzsche and Cobain), Prof. Uzig.

(Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal: “Peter Abrahams, in his terrific 10th novel, “Crying Wolf,” tells a riveting story of a time as menacing as any: the present. Inverness, though, the small New England school where an out-of-state scholarship freshman named Nat tries to make his mark, seems idyllic: a frequent location site for filmmakers in need of an ideal college campus. The idyll grows stranger when Nat is befriended by Izzie and Grace, beautiful twins in whose wealthy milieu Nat is a fish out of water. The twins hatch a scheme to solve Nat’s money problems, an ill-conceived caper that turns ugly when it converges with the deluded plans of a drug-addled campus thief. “Crying Wolf” unfolds brilliantly, in sequences made all the more compelling by nuance and precise detail. Mr. Abrahams captures all sorts of voices in all kinds of rooms: the razor-edged banter at the twins’ family dinner table, the heady talk in the philosophy class of a Nietzsche-obsessed professor, the egoistic mental ramblings of a thief who recites infomercial babble like spiritual truth. A book as smart and gripping as “Crying Wolf” makes any year memorable.”)