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Overview
A New York Times BestsellerThe Gargoyle: the mesmerizing story of one man's descent into personal hell and his quest for salvation. On a dark road in the middle of the night, a car plunges into a ravine. The driver survives the crash, but his injuriesconfine him to a hospital burn unit. There the mysterious Marianne Engel, a sculptress of grotesques, enters his life. She insists they were lovers in medieval Germany, when he was a mercenary and she was a scribe in the monastery of Engelthal. As she spins the story of their past lives together, the man's disbelief falters; soon, even the impossible can no longer be dismissed.
Synopsis
An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time The narrator of THE GARGOYLE is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide--for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.
A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him...
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
[The Gargoyle] has been heavily influenced by some of Mr. Davidson's own favorite authors, who range from Vladimir Nabokov to Patrick Susskind to (go figure) the playful parodist Jasper Fforde. The free-range erudition of books like Possession and The Name of the Rose also come to mind. And the wearyingly popular literary story-within-a-story format is used here to incorporate a wild, seemingly random array of tricks and tangents. But Mr. Davidson binds them together with vigorous and impressive narrative skill.
Editorials
From the Publisher
“Spellbinding. . . . A page-turning adventure that will keep you reading well past bedtime.” —The Boston Globe“An undeniably hot book. . . . It's as engrossing as it is gruesome, the kind of horror you watch with one eye closed. . . . A hell of a story.” —The Washington Post"Take a deep breath and plunge into this novel. It's a tale of love and redemption told through Davidson's haunting prose. " —USA Today“A transportingly unhinged debut. . . . Vigorous and impressive.” —The New York Times “Keeps the pages turning.” —The Plain Dealer “Take a deep breath and plunge into this novel. It's a tale of love and redemption told through Davidson's haunting prose.” —USA Today “Mr. Davidson skillfully assembles a centuries-old puzzle involving a series of fables of undying love. . . . The reader is kept guessing until the final pages.” —The Wall Street Journal“Mixes medical drama with medieval religious lore to explore the boundaries of faith and forgiveness. . . . Compelling.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Reads like the mad spawn of Anne Rice and Stephen King.” —Providence Journal “Original and highly addictive. . . . Captivating. . . . An impressive, memorable debut.” —The Denver Post “A story that sweeps us in with no protest. You want to be lost in its pages. . . . The real tragedy of this book is that it ends.” —Daily News“Beguiling. . . . Mixing romance, classic allusion and reality, Davidson's debut is a bravura performance.” —Marie Claire“I was blown away by Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle. It reminded me of Life of Pi, with its unanswered (and unanswerable) contradictions. A hypnotic, horrifying, astonishing novel that manages, against all odds, to be redemptive." —Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants“The Gargoyle is purely and simply an amazement, a riot, a blast. It's hard to believe that this is Andrew Davidson's first novel: He barrels out of the chute with the narrative brio and confidence, not to mention the courage, of a seasoned master. This book plucks the reader off the ground and whirls her through the air until she shouts from sheer abandonment and joy. What a great, grand treat.” —Peter StraubJanet Maslin
[The Gargoyle] has been heavily influenced by some of Mr. Davidson's own favorite authors, who range from Vladimir Nabokov to Patrick Susskind to (go figure) the playful parodist Jasper Fforde. The free-range erudition of books like Possession and The Name of the Rose also come to mind. And the wearyingly popular literary story-within-a-story format is used here to incorporate a wild, seemingly random array of tricks and tangents. But Mr. Davidson binds them together with vigorous and impressive narrative skill.—The New York Times
Ron Charles
likely to ignite the passion of anyone who loves a mix of romance and the macabre…Nothing [the narrator]—or you—can assume about this spectacularly imaginative journey will help navigate its twists and turns. Before it's all over, like Dante before him, our narrator must visit Hades, and like every chapter of The Gargoyle, that's a hell of a story, too.—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
The debut from Winnipeg writer Davidson is a sweeping tale of undying love between a burn victim and a sculptress of gargoyles who claims the pair have been lovers throughout ancient times. Brought to life in a spirited yet intensely personal reading by Lincoln Hoppe, the story resonates well beyond the first listen. Hoppe reads with tremendous passion and intensity, never going over the top, but always drawing his audience into the tale with a raw performance. Through suffering, pain, hatred and love, Hoppe captures the very essence of this enthralling tale and allows listeners to journey along wherever the tale goes. A Doubleday hardcover (Reviews, June 16). (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
At a modern-day hospital burn ward, a patient recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident is approached by a woman claiming to have been his lover in another lifetime. Davidson believably weaves historical detail into his first novel, adeptly developing even the most minor characters. Actor/screenwriter Lincoln Hoppe (
—Johannah Genett