Synopsis
SURRENDER is a mesmerizing psychological thriller from extraordinary novelist Sonya Hartnett.
I am dying: it's a beautiful word. Like the long slow sigh of a cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it.
As life slips away, Gabriel looks back over his brief twenty years, which have been clouded by frustration and humiliation. A small, unforgiving town and distant, punitive parents ensure that he is never allowed to forget the horrific mistake he made as a child. He has only two friends - his dog, Surrender, and the unruly wild boy, Finnigan, a shadowy doppelganger with whom the meek Gabriel once made a boyhood pact. But when a series of arson attacks grips the town, Gabriel realizes how unpredictable and dangerous Finnigan is. As events begin to spiral violently out of control, it becomes devastatingly clear that only the most extreme measures will rid Gabriel of Finnigan for good.
Publishers Weekly
In another eloquently written, heartrending novel, Hartnett (Thursday's Child; What the Birds See) plunges readers into the story of a young man facing the end of his tormented life. Through flashbacks and shifts in narrative voice, 20-year-old Anwell's recollections of the events that have brought him to this point slowly and painfully come to light. As a child, his distant and careless parents gave him the responsibility of looking after Vernon, his mentally disabled brother, and a terrible mistake in judgment results in Vernon's death. Anwell, now referring to himself as Gabriel, is paralyzed by grief and imagines his mother, in particular, is "making an island" of him. His only friends are a feral child named Finnegan with whom he makes a Faustian pact, and his dog, Surrender. As Finnegan begins to menace the town with arson, Gabriel must stand by and watch until he realizes he has in fact surrendered his soul. The pace of the novel is almost excruciatingly measured until the heart-stopping conclusion that, in retrospect, is manifest throughout the tale, attesting to the quality of the storytelling. Readers are left to grieve for an angel child, compassionately portrayed, engaged in a tug-of-war with evil and despair. Hartnett's novels may never reach the widest audience of young readers, but those who find her work will be moved by her gifted writing and the powerful changes her characters undergo. Ages 14-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.