Last Days

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  • The Last Days of Night: A Novel: Graham Moore: www.farmersmarketmusic.com: Books
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    • The food mostly ran out. I need to get some food , he thought, but instead drank a glass of sour milk. Kline watched as the man grasped one of his gloved hands with the other. He twisted the hand about and levered it downward and the hand came free. Kline felt his stump tingle. The other man, he saw, was doing the same thing. They pulled back their sleeves to show him the bare exposed lumps of flesh in which their forearms terminated. The second time was worse than the first, both because he already knew how it would feel and because of how much thicker an elbow is than a wrist.

    First, he carefully tied a tourniquet around the upper arm, and then brought the cleaver down hard, chopping all the way through on the first try, and then he thrust the stump against the burner. The stump sizzled and smoked, his vision starting to go. He shook his head and took two steps toward Borchert, and then collapsed. We do not want him to choose to walk away, to turn the other cheek, to flee when he could fight. We want him to struggle against the forces that oppose him, to do whatever is necessary to provide us with the answers we desire. Could he risk stopping before they were all dead?

    I want my characters to confront each other more directly, and more essentially, than generally is the case in life. As Evenson reveals Kline worrying over his soul, he also asks us—voyeurs to these dark and horrifying events—to worry after our own. Despite the differences between the settings and characters—the two protagonists are most certainly different men—both Klines are men of action, given to a dreadful capacity and talent for brutality.

    But where the Last Days Kline clings to his humanity, his Dark Property counterpart has long since discarded his. He brought the pen toward the paper, raised it, looked up. Both Klines share an ability to go beyond the point where other men would falter. They are each capable of unthinkable brutality, and their essences are revealed not through thoughts or words but through accumulated deeds. These two novels do not offer their protagonists the chance to change through self-realization or gradual learning, instead imposing the harsh external forces necessary to forge each Kline into something new, a person fired in a kiln of his own actions.

    This kiln also acts on readers. Rather than impose his worldview or even a preferred reading, Evenson simply creates a proving ground on which our own morals can be tried. The events that take place in the book are all true. The major characters and a few of the minor ones are all real people. I found it incessantly fascinating. Morgan, and a whole congregation of New York socialites, mega-wealthy business men and politicians. Most of these relationships became poisonously deadly. At issue first was the light bulb. Thomas Edison conned the public into believing that he had invented the little glass miracle that glowed in the dark.

    Men by the names of Sawyer, Man, and Joseph Swan did the real inventing and held the patents. Edison improved the design just enough for the Patent Office to issue him a patent. It was a war.

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    Nicola Tesla was a bona fide, 5 star, golden genius, the kind of genius that would be mentioned in the same sentence with Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci. He was also psychotic in the clinical sense. He described getting his ideas fully formed from dreams or hallucinations that were vivid, lasted days, and were sometimes scary. He, eventually, had a total nervous breakdown. Tesla should have been born at the end of the 21st century.

    He was that far ahead of the times. In the s, he described in detail television, cell phones, radio and wireless communication. Nicola Tesla invented radio not Marconi. Tesla worked for both Edison which ended incredibly badly and Westinghouse which also ended badly. Tesla was not a businessman and being thrown into the proverbial tank with sharks like Morgan, Edison and Westinghouse, poor Nicola Tesla was torn apart and eaten alive.

    They came together in a genius settlement that Mr. Cravath, who was 27 years old at the time, devised.

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    It is endlessly entertaining. I give it 8 stars out of a possible 5. You will not be disappointed.

    The Last Days of Night: A Novel: Graham Moore: www.farmersmarketmusic.com: Books

    Events are compressed, some interior conversations are created by the author, but the story itself is largely true. And what a story it is! Many giants of the American Industrial Revolution knocked heads and pocketbooks in the development and diffusion of electricity - and the most significant device that electricity made possible: Take a break from binge-watching TV or internet content.

    Instead, pick a weekend and read the whole book between Friday night and Monday morning. You'll feel wonderful having been so thoroughly engaged and entertained. I bought this book because I had read a few other books about Tesla, Edison, and the War of the Currents. I am attending law school beginning in the fall, so the legal side of this book appealed to me as well. The day after it arrived, I started reading it, and I couldn't put it down. The following day, I finished it and recommended it to my mother, who has never read any fiction or nonfiction about this time period, and she reacted the same way.

    She hasn't put it down since. The characters were well-developed throughout, and the story flowed very well. I thought that it was odd how the author broke up the chapters, as it seemed inconsistent, but it didn't affect the quality of the book. When I first started reading, I realized some factual errors in the story because I already had some background knowledge about Tesla, Edison, Westinghouse, and this time period , and it bothered me a bit, because the book seemed like it intended to be mostly factual where history was concerned and fictional only in the unrecorded details.

    After the story ends, the author has a section explaining all the factual inaccuracies, and explaining why he changed them. This made it the single best piece of historical fiction I've read, and I was deeply satisfied. See all 1, reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. I devoured it in one sitting while waiting for car repairs, wondering how the rest of the patrons weren't shaken up by the events within.

    It starts simply enough. Kline is at rock bottom wh Former undercover cop Kline is at rock bottom, depressed and missing a hand, when a religious sect forcibly drafts him into service, ferreting out the killer of their leader. Kline is at rock bottom when the phone calls start and eventually will look upon rock bottom with great fondness as he bores through the earths crust into greater depths of blood, fanaticism, and severed body parts.

    When the tale begins, Kline is minus a hand courtesy of a gentleman with a meat cleaver on his last undercover job. The calls start and a certain religious sect who equate amputations with salvation make him an offer he can't refuse. Kline skate the edge of sanity throughout most of the tale and goes through a large succession of meat grinders. The book has a creepy paranoid feel throughout. The simple put powerful style reminds me of Richard Stark in some ways, clipped and brutal.

    As Kline descends into a haze of carnage and chaos, you have to wonder that even if he does survive, would he be better off dead? The Brotherhood of Mutilation makes for a great foil, probably because the idea isn't that far-fetched. Four out of five stars. View all 4 comments. Apr 16, Richard Derus rated it really liked it. Attempting to find his way through a maze of Rating: Kline is a PI who doesn't need clients to hire him so he can live. This is because he stole money from a man who was trying to murder him.

    To make sure the man couldn't murder him, Kline bought time by lopping off his own hand before killing the murder-minded malefactor.

    • !
    • The Hope Chest!
    • Belinda On The Coast.

    All of this takes place before we meet Kline, and is the very least awful, least repulsive, and most understandable stuff that happens in the entire pp of this book. Then on we go. These are two sects of people who amputate parts of their bodies to align themselves with scripture: Srsly y'all can any sane person in possession of even modest decoding skills think this crap is meant literally?

    And if so, how can that morally defective person claim this horrifying religion is a force for love and peace after reading just this one passage? Back to the book. Borchert, leader of the mutilates and a twelve number of body parts amputated , has Kline kidnapped and forces him to investigate the death of Aline, the leader and founder of the mutilates a seventeen, as we horrifyingly and disgustingly learn later in the story , despite handicapping Kline by refusing to let him, a mere one the hand that's gone , meet with any witnesses or ask any questions or see any evidence.

    Now old hands in the groves of noir know that this is a set-up so classic that one wonders if those blinking neon signs are visible from the parkway. Kline certainly knows the danger he's in, and has in fact been boringly repetitious in his demands to be let go, let out, left alone. And then evil, evil Borchert gives Kline just enough to compel him, as a PI, to address the itch of curiousness. Bonus points for following that reference back to its origin. Paul, the leader, wants Kline to go finish the job he thought was done, ie killing the unholy holy man. Which, not to belabor the point, Kline doesn't want to do but does, in the process meeting an old friend, killing an old enemy, and causing a degree of mayhem only describable as Biblical.

    Kline is seen as the Mutilate Messiah, the burning brand that will cleanse the filth and degradation of error from the mutilate community. I have to stop now, or I will vomit. It took me three weeks to read this book because I couldn't do much at a time. It is grim, grisly, and gruesome; it is horrifying and horrible; it is strong, strong stuff for even seasoned veterans of de Sade's revolting works.

    Brian Evenson was raised as a Mormon; he was told by the Mormon Church that he would have to stop writing if he wanted to continue being a Mormon. I don't know what happened after that, but I know there are more books by Evenson to be read.

    And, I cannot believe I'm typing this sentence, I will be reading them. Evenson's vicious critique of christian religion is spot-on with my observations of the religion's effects on the world over the past two millennia. A more potent force for evil has never been unleashed. From the christian thugs burning the Library of Alexandria to the Westboro Baptist thugs condemning fags to burn in hell because their narrow-minded bigot of a gawd hates them, this religion should, in a properly run world, be closely monitored as a hate group and membership in it should deny a person all civil rights.

    Only recommended for the reader who seeks out the dark side. View all 10 comments. Been searching for a joyful, heartwarming story to get you into the holiday spirit? Boy, have I got just the book for you! Well, heartwarming may not be the best word for it. How bout gut-churning, bone-chilling, nerve-racking, gruesome little slice of horror noir?

    Only to wake up later and find two men sitting at the foot of his bed. The leader of The Brotherhood of Mutilation , who count their spiritual progress by the number of body parts lopped off, seems to have been murdered, or has he? No matter how dark the subject matter, the dialog is often light and funny. All of which helps these stories to maintain a gripping, breakneck pace.

    All that matters are the actions of the characters and the horrors they inflict on one another. Now, a word of warning: Only those fearless readers with strong hearts and cast-iron stomachs need venture any further. And here I thought only Stephen King pulled stupid shit like that. O Blessed Flying Spaghetti Monster in the sky, if it be thy will, scour my mind with your Noodly Appendage and cleanse it from this pestilent horror which has stained it so. Realizing this fact, I immediately went back and reread the conclusion to the Brotherhood section, and I must admit that would have made for one hell of a powerful novella.

    Unfortunately, the latter half, while vastly entertaining, was not quite up to snuff with his initial creation, in my opinion. It was a little too over the top, for my taste. View all 11 comments. Mar 08, Maciek rated it it was amazing Shelves: I blasted through this book in a two days, starting deep into the night and finishing just minutes ago.

    I would have finished it during the night but I had to go to sleep. This has turned out totally against what I was expecting - a mediocre mystery thriller - and became something different entirely. I don't know if enjoyment is a right word in this case, but I was barely able to tear myself away from it and couldn't wait to be able to get back to it and read to the very end. Sure, the thriller e I blasted through this book in a two days, starting deep into the night and finishing just minutes ago.

    Sure, the thriller elements are most definitely present, and the novel is inspired by the classic noir detective fiction the blurb mentions the author's fascination with Dashiel Hammett's Red Harvest.

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    However it would be to do the novel a disservice by classifying it as simple genre fiction, even if drawing from the great masters. Last Days cannot be properly classified to just one genre - it draws from them, mixes them, refuses to melt and then become solid again, escaping categorial impositions.

    There's plenty of imagery and elements associated with horror fiction here, especially the Weird kind; The pervading, Kafkaesque sense of helplesness and being lost in a labyrinth of the events that can't be comprehend is a prevailing theme, where the labyrinth is really a slide, and even though one wanders through its mazes they always somehow point downwards, where there's only darkness. The protagonist, Kline, is a retired detective.

    A recluse, Kline now lives solitarily in his apartment. Money doesn't trouble him. What does is the brutal mutiliation he was forced to perform on himself during one case; an attacker forced him to cut his own hand with a cleaver. Kline managed to outsmart the attacker and kill him, and live by cauterizing the wound. One day he receives a phone call: In a scene which is almost a satire of the opening of The Trial two voices ask him about the details of the mutiliation, revealing to him that they know more about it that he has revealed to the press; they say that they offer him a plane ticket which will take him to them, saying that they're "opportunity".

    They refuse to offer more information, and Kline choses to ignore the call and the ticket, as he has enough money to live on and doesn't need to get involved in anything.

    A week later the phone calls again, with the same two voices, which Kline gives the names of Lisp and Low Voice; they grow desperate, saying that he's their man and that they're the same as him. Kline," said Low Voice. As in The Trial , the two men eventually show up at Kline's place, and it becomes clear that he has no choice in this matter; he's dragged into a situation which is so bizarre and riddled with ill logic and seemingly unsolvable.

    To say more of the plot would be to spoil it, and that would be a crime comitted against the text. It is a temptation to discuss it in detail, as it proves more complexity that its slim lenght might suggest; it contains imagery which is graphic, visceral and disturbing. Evenson writes with a detached, impassionate voice, which works brilliantly. His prose is taut, his language and sentences so bare that they are almost transparent, letting the reader into the mind and confusion of Kline's character. He writes without any safety net, grabbing his readers by the throat and almost suffocating them with the sheer intensity of what is going on there, and boy, is there much going on.

    Last Days reads like a rocket, taking off and never letting go, from the first word to the very last. Kline's limited perspective, disorientation and frustration all happens at such a frantic pace that is bound to leave some breathless, and it's bad to be breathless amids terror and horrible things. Evenson uses cliffhangers masterfully , sometimes several per chapter, never allowing for things to slow down, not only keeping the suspense and interest of the reader but driving it higher and higher, higher and higher, until it becomes almost unbearable and we wish we could have read three pages at once, then four, five.

    What is worth pointing out that in all the seriousness of the book's tone and content, it contains plenty of humor. Kline is a private eye who never loses his cool, and the dialogue he engages in is straight of the hardboiled fiction of the past. Every task is difficult, every decision morally complex and ambiguous. Character which can be perceived as sympathetic are really monsters, and monsters soon start to be perceived as sympathetic.

    Kline is thrown around, his physical strenght never in full potential, never allowing him an easy way out - but then so is the power of his opponents. The question of power is another fascinating theme of this surprisingly complex and multilayered work. If you ever were watching The Maltese Falcon and wanted to know how it would be if Humphrey Bogart would get involved in something really, really weird , then this is your chance! The novel is bound to inspire a number of reactions from readers, but I can't see anyone being disappointed by it. It's short, it's taut, it's complex, it's fascinating, it's disturbing and immersing.

    It grabs you and doesn't want to let go, so be prepared! Peter Straub has penned a 11 page introduction, in which he discusses the novel at lenght, but also reveals major plot points and events, along with the conclusion. It's great reading, but only after reading the text. It's as carefully planned as a house of cards, and the best way to get to know it is just to start at page one and go on from there. The novel is in fact a composite of two novellas. The first one, Brotherhood of Mutiliation was so popular that the author decided to expand on it and wrote a part two, Last Days.

    This is not a cheap addition to cash in on the success; although Brotherhood of Mutiliation can work on its own only together with its counterpart it achieves the full effect. They're similar and different; Together they form a giant rabbit hole, which will suck any reader who will simply read them, word after word, from left to right. As I'm writin this, the novel has less than ratings.

    This is a disgrace to its sheer quality. It needs to be popular. It needs to be read. Books that good don't come as often as we would have liked, and when they do many of them go by practically unnoticed. Don't allow for Last Days to go unnoticed. It's unsettling, frenetic, fascinating, haunting and hugely recommended! View all 15 comments. It led me to seek out more of his work.

    This novel is just as original and it's actually rather startling in it's boldness and novelty. Last Days is about an undercover cop named Kline who's deep in depression after his hand is chopped off by a bad guy.

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    He's then approached by a cult of people who believe that amputation brings one closer to God, and is forced to solve a murder in their midst. The book gets crazier and crazier as Kline falls deeper into the rabbit hole that is the Brotherhood of Mutilation. Evenson not only does a great job at showing the gradual loss of sanity that anyone would understandably go through if thrown into this world, he also maintains a really singular atmosphere.

    I doubt that there were more than two people in the whole book who had all of their limbs! The world in which this book exists is filled with people with multiple body parts chopped off, which creates a vibe that I haven't really witnessed in other books. And through all of it, Evenson's relentless writing moves through the strange tale at a nice tight clip. I'm now even more curious to read another book by Evenson to see what other ideas he can come up with.

    View all 3 comments. Sep 04, Brian rated it it was amazing. For those of you that have read this book you will understand why I feel the need for a hug. If you took Kafka's The Trial and morphed it with Palahniuk's macabre sensibilities and sprinkled in the Book of Revelations, you might could get within spittin' distance of Brian Evenson's writing.

    I only know about this author because of his book on Robert Coover. Now I want to read every word writ by him. Just don't read while eating meat cooked rare. View all 5 comments. Mar 08, Trudi rated it really liked it Recommended to Trudi by: What a darkly disturbing yet strangely delightful romp of a book. Last Days is a marvelous mash-up of hard-boiled detective noir, literary mystery and straight-up horror that never comes across as messy or confused. Evenson's prose is sooooo tight ; not a single word is wasted, the narrative action propelled along at a break-neck pace, every other chapter ending on a nail-biting cliffhanger, the dialogue smart, snappy, and at times very funny.

    I blew through its pages in no time at all, Wow! I blew through its pages in no time at all, and I bet you will too. It's easy to draw parallels to the noir greats here, but since I just finished reading several Cain novels I will repeat what I wrote in my review for Double Indemnity because it applies just as well here: It all starts with a delicious chill up your spine, your eyeballs riveted to the page, your breath held, the "gotta know what happens next" monster rattling the bars of his cage It's sharp, with staccato beats and primal rhythms.

    Even with all of the dreadful mutilations and creepy fanaticism running through the story, there are unexpected moments of brilliant levity which made me grin and snicker. As I found myself grinning and snickering, I was reminded of The Pilo Family Circus , another great piece of writing not to be missed that's a genius blend of genres containing the blackest of humor. But now a short word on the dark heart of Last Days , because in some respects what we have here is a non-supernatural horror novel.

    At times, the story flirts dangerously close to parody: If you're not careful, he just might cut it right the fuck off. There's something so unbelievably creepy and sinister to me about the lopping off of body parts either against one's will or voluntarily.

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    Paul, the leader, wants Kline to go finish the job he thought was done, ie killing the unholy holy man. But that could be said about several of his films, so I'm not sure why I'm stating it. Evenson has also received an O. Last Days can be read like a darkly exhilarating Noir novel but I think further readings will bring out more serious themes about religious conviction and betrayals. This motion picture chronicles the last days of the most iconic outlaw of the old west. Showing of 1, reviews. At least five times, I nearly closed the book, wanting to fling it across the room.

    Several films that come to mind are: And who could ever forget poor old Lawrence being forced to hack through his own foot in the original Saw movie? He wants us to cut through our feet! We are as in the dark as he is, as frustrated and frightened. Something sinister is afoot no pun intended , and madness lurks around every corner. Finally, I want to give a shout out to Maciek and his spectacular review without which I never would have picked up this book, and that would have been my great loss. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee.

    This book is dark, this story is dark