THE GLISTER
John Burnside
Doubleday
Fiction
ISBN: 9780385527644
Past a small dreary town, through a poisoned wood, there sits the ruins of a chemical factory. The factory was once the heart and purpose of the town, but it is shut down now, abandoned and decaying. The people are sick and, without options, stay there to die mysterious and painful deaths. But for the teenage boys of Innertown, the most immediate threat is random, unseen and almost unacknowledged.
In THE GLISTER by John Burnside, teenage boys disappear --- not very often and not very many, but enough to convince 15-year-old Leonard that he is not at all safe in his hometown. Like his fellow teenagers charged with caring for dying parents, he dreams of leaving Innertown but isn't sure how to do so. He escapes instead through the meager literary offerings in the library, sex with his emotionally distant girlfriend and contemplative time at the old chemical plant. His mother is gone, his father mute and damaged, and the other adults around him unable to protect him from the violence and illness that is killing Innertown.
Burnside's tale is beautiful and menacing, toxic and alluring, like the empty and sinister chemical plant that has poisoned Innertown. Though told from the perspective of several characters, this is really Leonard's book --- at once a coming-of-age tale, a murder mystery, a horror story and an apocalyptic warning about industry and responsibility. Leonard is a tender and an innocent young man, though guilty of many trespasses, and he embodies the complexities, fears, anxiety and desperation of Innertown.
When Leonard finds himself in the heart of the chemical plant, with a stranger he thought was his friend, he comes face to face with the evil that the plant has manifested --- the Glister. In a frightening and lyrical ending, readers must decide for themselves what the Glister actually is and what is really haunting the woods and the chemical plant.
THE GLISTER is a short book, but there is much to enjoy, recoil from and decipher in its pages. Burnside's command of language is obvious, lending a poetic quality to this scary novel. Like a post-modern fairy tale, it explores life and death and the end of childhood as well as bigger ideas about society, greed and apathy.
Burnside's latest is ambiguous, and that may not satisfy all readers. Leonard confronts all degrees of evil, and before he, and readers, can come to any conclusions, the narration changes gears, delivering an unforgettable ending. For those willing to follow Burnside to the shadowy and uncertain world of Innertown, a thought-provoking, challenging and original conclusion-without-a-conclusion awaits.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
© Copyright 1996-2009, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
