Synopses & Reviews
Review
"While elaborations of plot need not be accompanied by corresponding elaborations of structure and style, Mr. McElroy has not been backward in his efforts to render his medium compatible with its message. The language and techniques of film-making have contributed much to a style which often fails to rise above its own complications, leaving us, finally, with a sense of what the hero calls 'power ... tuned in on when it lacked direction but had momentum.' This unfocused power has led to the construction of a novel of complex patterns and, by now, familiar mysteries. 'Mingling beyond mere will with the mixed obsessions of others,' the hero gradually expands an unexplained fact, the destruction of the only copy of a film he has helped to make, into a shadowy combination of obscure threats and uncertain alliances. Finding himself at the center of this ill-defined matrix of plot and counterplot, he struggles to give substance not only to the mystery which surrounds him, but also to his own personality, and to his search for a sense of place. England and America, along with their differences in space and time, become the focal points of his increasingly complicated investigations." Reviewed by Zak M. Salih, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Review
"For its technical brilliance, its unremitting intelligence, for the rich complexity of the homologies and analogies between its systems and the fearful times we live in,
Lookout Cartridge is the rarest kind of achievement." (George Stade,
The New York Times Book Review)
"Spectacular, richly imagined . . . an excruciatingly difficult book to put down." (The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Review
"Spectacular, richly imagined . . . an excruciatingly difficult book to put down." (The Cleveland Plain Dealer
About the Author
Joseph McElroy is the author of eight novels, including A Smuggler's Bible and Actress in the House (both available from Overlook). He is the recipient of a Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Ingram Merrill Foundations.