The boy watched his father slide a flap of cardboard beneath the stray cat lying motionless in the street. He braced himself for the backyard dig...
***
The Blurb
A compelling literary crime that follows the son of a serial murderer who changes his identity in a bid to escape his past.
The arrest of his father for a series of unspeakable crimes shattered Lyle Edison’s suburban teenage life. There was no way to pick up the pieces, so he ran. Now at last, after years of hiding under a false name to escape his father’s wicked legacy, Lyle has begun to build a future with the woman he loves.
But after an encounter with an unworldly stranger named Icarus who seems to know Lyle’s secrets – a homeless man with a questionable grip on reality who claims to be a messenger for the Divine, Lyle is set on a perilous new path.
Confronting Icarus means coming face to face with his own past, forcing Lyle to make a choice that threatens the fragile facade he has created, with his future and his new family hanging in the balance.
My Review
It took me a little while to warm to this book, but it was well worth hanging in there.
I can sincerely say I haven't read a book quite like this one before. In fact, it would be difficult to place it in a particular genre.
I was engaged at the beginning of this book. It begins during the youthful years of the main character, Lyle who lives a fairly average life with his parents. However, it quickly becomes clear when Lyle's father is arrested for a series of crimes that the book is going in a different direction. Lyle runs away from home at seventeen and adopts a new identity to distance himself from the name of his father.
We are then introduced to a character named Icarus, and this is where I initially struggled. He is some kind of Divine being who has been sent to earth from the titular Mother Howl to help Lyle, that the book took a turn in a very different direction. Icarus is completely different to our image of the traditional angel that sits atop our Christmas trees. He is blunt, rough around the edges and quite frankly appears unhinged. This is where I began to struggle with the book as this is far from my usual reading fare.
I almost set the book aside at this point, but I am very glad I didn't as this turned out to be an extremely compelling book that I couldn't put down. It has a sedate pace which suited it perfectly for this character driven novel.
The author does a great job of bringing the Lyle and Icarus parts of the story together at the end, and it suddenly all started to make sense to me. In fact, I felt the book had a very satisfying ending.
The book is well written, and I do think it is worth reading. Periodically it is good for us to step slightly out of our reading comfort zone, and I am extremely glad I did so with this one.
If you like genre defying book that I recommend this one. Happy reading!
This book is perfect for fans of Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh and The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
Book Details
ISBN: 978 1915523037
Publisher: Datura Books
Formats: e-book, audio and paperback
No. of Pages: 300 (paperback)
Purchase Links
About the Author
Craig Clevenger was born in Dallas, Texas and grew up in Southern California, where he studied English at California State University, Long Beach. He divides his time between the Mojave desert and the central coast, where he works at a local library and runs a community writing workshop.
He is the author of The Contortionist's Handbook, Dermaphoria, and Mother Howl. His essays and short fiction have appeared in the Coachella Review, Black Clock, San Francisco Noir 2, Starlite Pulp Review and the forthcoming Amber Waves of Autumn from Kelp Books. His works have been translated into 30+ languages.
You can also find Craig at:
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(all opinions are my own)
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