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Interviews | May 16, 2013
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$9.95
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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsThe Great Nightby Chris Adrian
Staff Pick
Chris Adrian's inimitable flair for creating fantastic worlds just around the corner from our everyday routines is on full display in this modern adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. No one is better at mingling such searing emotion with whimsical flights of fancy, making The Great Night an utterly captivating read. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Acclaimed as a "gifted, courageous writer" (the New York Times), Chris Adrian brings all his extraordinary talents to bear in The Great Night a brilliant and mesmerizing retelling of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream.
On Midsummer Eve 2008, three people, each on the run from a failed relationship, become trapped in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park, the secret home of Titania, Oberon, and their court. On this night, something awful is happening in the faerie kingdom: in a fit of sadness over the end of her marriage, which broke up in the wake of the death of her adopted son, Titania has set loose an ancient menace, and the chaos that ensues will threaten the lives of immortals and mortals alike. Selected by the New Yorker as one the best young writers in America, Adrian has created a singularly playful, heartbreaking, and humorous novella story that charts the borders between reality and dreams, love and magic, and mortality and immortality. Review:"Adrian follows his masterful The Children's Hospital with a disappointing and decidedly less ambitious effort, a flabby retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream that finds a heartbroken Titania loosening a demonic Puck on San Francisco's Buena Vista Park. Caught up in the mayhem are Henry, a neurotic gay man whose affair has just ended; Molly, a young woman turned inward after the suicide of her boyfriend; Will, a lovelorn tree doctor trying to get his lady back; and a group staging a musical remake of Soylent Green to explain the decline of San Francisco's homeless population. Adrian liberally applies surreal sex jokes and populates his adventure with bizarre fairies, impossible events, and extensive backstories, but this investigation into love's labors never ignites. Adrian occasionally channels the wayward, winsome feel of millennial San Francisco, but his characters remains wispy and his plot fails to develop satisfying turns. The book contains flashes of what makes this writer great, but he has better work in him. (May)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review:“The Great Night — by turns brilliant, cruel, tenderhearted, visionary, poetic, and profane — is Adrian’s ambitious attempt to fetch from his own imagination what Shakespeare referred to as ‘jewels from the deep.’” Elle
Review:“William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream deals with illusion — in particular, the illusion that things can be set aright, as if by magic. This riff by New Yorker 20 Under 40 author Adrian (A Better Angel) is a whole lot darker, declaring that no magic can take away the memory of suffering and that in our self-serving scramble we disdain the pain (and indeed the goodness) of others.....Inventive and scarily beautiful...it is an extraordinary novel.” Library Journal (starred review)
Synopsis:Acclaimed as a “gifted, courageous writer”(The New York Times), Chris Adrian brings all his extraordinary talents to bear in The Great Night—a brilliant and mesmerizing retelling of Shakespeares “A Midsummer Nights Dream.” On Midsummer Eve 2008, three people, each on the run from a failed relationship, become trapped in San Franciscos Buena Vista Park, the secret home of Titania, Oberon, and their court. On this night, something awful is happening in the faerie kingdom: in a fit of sadness over the end of her marriage, which broke up in the wake of the death of her adopted son, Titania has set loose an ancient menace, and the chaos that ensues will threaten the lives of immortals and mortals alike. Selected by The New Yorker as one the best young writers in America, Adrian has created a singularly playful, heartbreaking, and humorous novel—a story that charts the borders between reality and dreams, love and magic, and mortality and immortality. Synopsis:Chris Adrians magical third novel is a mesmerizing reworking of Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream. On Midsummers Eve 2008, three brokenhearted people become lost in San Franciscos Buena Vista Park, the secret home of Titania, Oberon, and their court. On this night, something awful is happening in the faerie kingdom: in a fit of sadness over the end of her marriage and the death of her adopted son, Titania has set loose an ancient menace, and the chaos that ensues upends the lives of immortals and mortals alike in a story that is playful, darkly funny, and poignant. About the AuthorChris Adrian is the author of Gobs Grief, The Children's Hospital, and A Better Angel. Selected by the New Yorker as one of their "20 Under 40," he lives in San Francisco, where he is a fellow in pediatric hematology-oncology.
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