Unfolding with a propulsive ferocity, These Violent Delights is an exquisitely plotted excavation of the depths of human desire and the darkness it can bring forth in us. The Secret History meets Lie with Me in Micah Nemerevers compulsively readable debut novel-a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian is also volatile and capriciously cruel, and Paul becomes increasingly afraid that he can never live up to what Julian expects of him.Īs their friendship spirals into all-consuming intimacy, they each learn the lengths to which the other will go to stay together, an obsession that ultimately hurtles them toward an act of irrevocable violence. Paul will stop at nothing to prove himself worthy of their friendship, because with Julian, life is more invigorating than Paul could ever have imagined. Paul sees Julian as his sole intellectual equal-an ally against a suffocating conventional world. When he meets the worldly Julian, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate’s effortless charm. Sensitive, insecure, and incomprehensible to his grieving family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it’s with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |