Hardcover, 384 pages
Expected publication: November 13th 2018 by Hogarth Press (first published August 9th 2018)
Original Title: A Ladder to the Sky
ISBN 1984823019 (ISBN13: 9781984823014)
Goodreads Synopsis:
The new novel from the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Heart’s Invisible Furies , a seductive Highsmithian psychodrama following one brilliant, ruthless man who will stop at nothing in his pursuit of fame
Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for success. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent – but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own.
Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful – but desperately lonely – older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel.
Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall…
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Seductive, intoxicating, these are just a few of the words used to describe “A Ladder to the Sky” and they’d be right. Maurice Swift is the exact kind of amoral character readers love to hate, even when that hate has you lifting your head from the story and saying, “What the actual [expletive] did he just do?”
From his first mark to his last, Maurice’s rise and fall from “grace” is the sort of story that resonates with readers because we all have known someone who climbed the ladder by making the types of choices that leave us cold inside.
. . . and those of us who are really honest with ourselves recognize that some of Maurice’s choices are not dissimilar to ones we ourselves have made or have been tempted by in the past.
Aside from a touch of confusion when the novel opened up from Erich Ackermann’s perspective when I was from the description expecting Maurice’s took a dozen pages to get into, but after that, John Boyne has a deft hand with descriptions and characterizations to give each character their voice in this narrative. A narrative that sucks a reader in and doesn’t let go until the final act plays out on the page. Having never read anything by John Boyne before, I can now say with confidence that I am picking up everything else this man every pens.
4.5 stars and so worth it.
I participated in Penguin’s “First to Read” program and read an e-copy early in the hopes I would share my thoughts about this work. Insert usual disclaimer here, does not affect my thoughts, etc.
These Salt-Stained Pages 