Gay & Lesbian Fiction, Family & Friendship - Fiction, Thrillers, Phases of Life - Fiction, Crimes - Fiction, Multicultural Detectives - Fiction
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Overview
Take the sensuous, fecund New Orleans setting, add a generous helping of tangled Southern family history, and season liberally with a sensitive teenage boy rejected by his friends and frightened of his own homoerotic impulses and you wouldn't be surprised to discover that the novel containing all of the above was written by someone named Rice. But a few paragraphs into the first page, it's clear that Anne Rice's son's first novel isn't about vampires or witches and does not otherwise read like one of her exceedingly popular books. The only family resemblance is in the setting, the sexual orientation of the lovingly described male characters, and the scent of overripe magnolias.There's murder, suicide, and madness at the heart of this rather clumsycoming-of-age story, which focuses on the youthful friendship of Stephen Conlin, Meredith Ducote, Greg Darby, and Brandon Charbonnet. This friendship is destroyed by a sexual incident that takes place just before the foursome enters Cannon, an exclusive prep school. There, Stephen is ostracized by his former friends, now the most popular kids on campus, who'd just as soon forget their own complicity in the event. Envy, passion, and rage drive the narrative, but the emotions are as juvenile as the characters, and the long passages depicting the rituals and cruelties of high school, from pep rallies to football games, slow down the pace without really illuminating character or motivation. The novel reads like a roman ß clef. Rice might have been wiser to tell someone else's story rather than his own. --Jane AdamsEditorials
Kansas City Star
Solid debut novel...an absorbing tale.Austin Chronicle
Rice, whose fluid prose navigates smoothly between the agony of adolescence and the apparent stability of adulthood, has a keen ear for observation. His characters speak and act with an ease that proves Rice to be wiser than his years.Elizabeth Seaport
...rich and loving depiction of an exotic and intoxicating city...The characters are compelling...vivid and intense.—The Boston Herald
New York Magazine
...(a) furiously paced book...Less Than Zero meets Donna Tartt spiced with Stephen King.Glamour Magazine
...shocking, sexy tale..an intricate novel about four childhood pals whose friendships deteriorate into a nightmare of violence and chaos...Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction
Anne Rice's 21-year-old son puts his pen to paper to reveal this gothic murder story set amongst a group of childhood friends in New Orleans.Washington Post Book World
...unexpected twists and a cleverly planned mystery. [Rice] takes more risks than an older writer might...images linger long after the book is over.Rocky Mountain News
...an imaginative gothic tale...— (August 27, 2000)
Seattle Weekly
There's a lot to admire in Rice's first effort. He's learned...a storyteller's sense of timing. And \he capably brings a gay teen's inner turmoil to life.—(August 24, 2000)
XY Magazine
...it has sort of a Blair Witch suspense.Publishers Weekly -
Chronicling the lives of four tormented youths, 21-year-old author Rice's earnestly overwritten debut novel flails wildly and suffers from an identity crisis as awkward and vivid as that of his soul-seared characters. Yet the book offers an intriguing, complex story, a hard-nosed, lyrical, teenage take on Peyton Place set in contemporary New Orleans. The tangle of a plot grows weedlike when former childhood friends enter high school and find their loyalties have dramatically shifted. Popular, budding bulimic Meredith Ducote is a closet alcoholic whose diaries brim with morose aphorisms on her wretched life; Greg Darby and Brandon Charbonnet are boisterously homophobic high school jocks; and Stephen Conlin, whose father committed suicide, is the sensitive homosexual boy who quickly becomes the victim of cruelty and derision from the school's popular crowd, led by Greg and Brandon. But the two bullies are covering up a painful childhood secret in their persecution of Stephen, a secret Meredith knows. Before the novel reveals this secret during the overwrought climax set during a devastating hurricane, one character dies, another has an emotional breakdown, a parent is institutionalized, a gay bar is bombed by a militant hate group, a concealed paternity is discovered and several families are broken up. Rice is sensitive to the emotional undercurrents that compel teenagers to both mask and wallow in their intense feeling, but the atmosphere of juvenile angst that pervades the novel is as gluey and suffocating as a hot summer on the bayou. 20-city author tour. (Aug.) FYI: The author is the son of novelist Anne Rice and poet Stan Rice, which no doubt is why the name "Rice" dominates the book's jacket. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|Internet Book Watch
Adolescence is difficult for even the most adjusted youngster, but for childhood friends Stephen, Meredith, Brandon, and Greg it is a nightmare. The foursome used to enjoy playing hide and seek in a nearby cemetery, but during a storm Meredith watches Greg and Stephen humping each other. She found the incident ugly and that day forever changed everyone's relationships. Meredith felt compelled to hurt Stephen . She succeeded by informing the high school's in crowd that he was a fag leading to Stephen becoming the prime target of everyone including Greg. Greg and Meredith become an entry, but their relationship turns violent. Meredith becomes an alcoholic and Brandon turns into a maniacal terrorist. Now five years after starting high school, the former friends are together at a reunion that reveals frightening truths including a murder. There is a vein of darkness and brooding disaster throughout the story line. This leads the audience to anticipate tragedy is about to strike at almost any moment even with the exciting climax providing a ray of light for the future. A Density Of Souls illuminates the reaction to alleged homosexuality by a predominantly heterosexual crowd and its aftermath on the victims of sexual choice bias. Christopher Rice shows he is a talented author who can spin a dark tale without the benefit of the supernatural or his mother's fame.—Internet Book Watch
Elizabeth Hand
Rice he has a good sense of pacing, and once A Density of Souls graduates from high school, the plot rackets along through a labyrinth featuring fundamentalist attacks on gays and revelations about Stephen's past. Christopher Rice will be appearing on MTV's The Real World, and that's where he'll meet his ideal audience: people for whom high school is still the defining moment, or adulthood a scary, exciting roller coaster they've just embarked upon.—The Village Voice
Book Details
Published
August 1, 2000
Publisher
New York : Hyperion, c2000.
Pages
274
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780786866465