Synopses & Reviews
Meeting Evil tells an adrenaline-pumped, genuinely frightening tale of malevolence that swerves swiftly and irrevocably to a catastrophic climax.
John Felton meets evil late one Monday morning when the doorbell rings. Standing on the front porch is a stranger. He wears expensive running shoes and a baseball cap and calls himself Richie. He tells John his car has stalled and asks for help. An altercation at the gas station leads to a shocking crime as violence begets violence. At the end of this harrowing day, John returns home to find Richie ensconced in his living room, chatting up his wife. The evil has somehow seeped into his life. Thus begins the transformation of an unremarkable husband and father of two into a desperate man willing to go to any length to protect his family from the darkness that threatens them.
This is an extraordinary masterpiece and a chilling portrait of mounting menace played out against an everyday world of domestic routine, personified in a protagonist of basic decency grappling with both the immediate and existential meaning of true evil.
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"The author creates a world in this book that is so corrupt, so consistently vicious, that innocence can glow visibly within his misunderstood protagonist. The plot gets nicely complicated...and the entire contraption claps together in a great, unpredictable, satisfying calamity." The New York Times Book Review
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"Berger's powerful 19th novel investigates the familiar question of why bad things happen to good people....Berger couches his frightening, paranoic plot with moral and philosophical underpinnings in sardonic, impeccable 'fluid prose'..." Publishers Weekly
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"The presto agitato first half seems at first no deeper than, say, Ed McBain's Downtown; later, when he raises unsettling questions about the deeper kinship between the psycho and the realtor, Berger still remains noncommittal. The result is by turns exhilarating, disturbing, and finally unsatisfying as if an amusement-park ride had just dumped you back where you first got on." Kirkus Reviews
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"[A] precisely rendered, excruciatingly suspenseful tale of psychological duality." Library Journal
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"America's wittiest, most elegant novelist." The Village Voice
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"A brilliant and troubling book....Thomas Berger is the laureate of the ludicrous tragedy." The Chicago Tribune
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"A clever, stylishly written black comedy." The San Francisco Chronicle
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"Spare, meticulous prose...sharply evocative of human weakness and rage." The Washington Post
Synopsis
Good and evil collide in the story of John Felton, an ordinary real-estate salesman who comes to the aid of a stranger with a stalled vehicle, and who finds himself involved in a crime spree of kidnapping, arson, and murder.
About the Author
Thomas Berger is the author of twenty-two novels. His previous novels include
Regiment of Women,
Neighbors, and
The Feud, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His
Little Big Man is known throughout the world. His most recent novel is
Best Friends.
Jonathan Lethem is the National Book Award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn.
Exclusive Essay
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