The Glister Paperback – February 9, 2010

This book felt a bit like a puzzle put together incorrectly - it's written in the voice of four or five different characters who share the (surely unintended) trait of inauthenticity. Since the central mystery of the story, the progressive disappearance of a devastated industrial town's boys, isn't explained those voices become the only real substance to the story and that inauthenticity matters. The one character who has the largest part of the book, a boy who is, apparently, the next in line for victimhood speaks in a changing voice - he at once seems ten years old and just moments later is philosophizing like an old man. Vague about the boy's age Burnside lets slip near the book's end, a point by which the reader has come to thoroughly dislike the boy that he is fifteen - an improbable age for a character who claims sexual and literary experience orders of magnitude beyond that tender age. Perhaps I expected the writing to be more poetic since the author is a published poet but in this too I was disappointed. His ruminations were largely cliches and filled with contemporary pop cultural allusions sure to date the book and consign it to literary oblivion. Nothing is resolved at the book's end, not who is (presumably) murdering the boys nor why, not what the source of the town's evil is, not how anyone relates to anyone else. While when at the story's end the aforementioned boy walks into a brightly lit "portal" it is easy enough to assume what this is meant to signify I was still not able to shake the nagging sensation that Burnside himself wasn't sure what the book meant and how it concluded. An unsatisfying read.

This story was positioned to be something that would be with you for days after completing it; I did not find this to be so. It was a good story with interesting twist (sort of), but it didn't stay with me for days, not even until the end of the day! I suppose this is a "new suspenseful mystery". I prefer the old suspense, maybe I'm just showing my age. Although it was a quick and easy read for me it was without.

I'm returning to review this book after having finished it six weeks ago. Even after so long, it resonates. The book has a harsh reality-driven feel to it in places, a cop-show feel that gives it sort of a television mini-series pulse, but thematically it is dreamy and melancholy. Dodging amongst the almost savage depictions of hopelessness and decay, the surreal components of the story positively glow. Fantastic. This is not a book to read for plot so much as to read for theme, and language, and mood.

Seriously elegant prose, page turning tension and thoroughly creepy and disorienting story. Set in an isolated, forgotten post-industrial town on the Scottish coast, where the adults are wasting away from illnesses and alcoholism, the young people run wild and teenaged boys are going missing, one by one by one. A great read.

Well written, a fun read.

This book kept my interest throughout. It left me with a lot of questions though. All in all it was a good read.

Much like previous reviewers, I found the premise of this novel intriguing. Disappearing children, mutated animals, a crooked run-down town's cover-up. Reading the book flap makes this novel out to be a dark, twisted tale. In the traditional sense, this is not the case. The story portrayed on the book flap never really occurs. The flap jacket paints a story of a group of kids on a quest for answers to the dark town secret. In reality, this entire premise consists of one major scene that involves a stereotypical, unoriginal belief one kid has formulated.When looked at as a character study, this book is a winner. The characters are well fleshed out and Burnside does a fine job of getting the reader to fall quickly into the stories of these characters.The writing that accompanies these characters is superb. As others have stated, the entire book is taut with a dark, lingering air of horror throughout the book. That is why the last 30 pages are such a major disappointment. The climax and ultimate unveiling of the mystery is thin, lazy, and rushed.Ultimately Burnside should have put these characters in a setting he could handle or wrap up this premise with a decent ending. I feel cheated after taking the time to read this book, albeit slim, only to come up with a pathetic ending.

Corby and Fife - is it Fife, east coast of Scotland anyway? - are somehow recognisable here, but Burnside has taken his work in a more allegorical direction. 'Dark' doesn't really go there, but this is a world that is oddly enticing as well as sometimes atavistic or self-centred, partly because Glister is beautifully written, frequently poetic. Perhaps this is Burnside's finest book to date.

Great read. More impressed on reflection after finishing book

J'ai eu du mal à finir ce roman assez court pourtant (255 pages), intriguée par des critiques élogieuses, dans la presse comme sur la 4ème de couverture dont extrait : "....what happens on almost every page is absorbing... an extraordinarily good writer...".C'est effectivement écrit avec talent, sans trop de dialogues, avec des phrases bien composées et donc un bon exercice de lecture pour un angliciste. Par contre, question histoire c'est affaire de goûts et celle-ci n'est pas du tout du mien pour les raisons suivantes :- ambiance apocalyptique, cauchemardesque, suscitant un malaise permanent- décors d'après catastrophe (usine chimique abandonnée, ville "morte", paysages de ruines....)- des meurtres mystérieux d'adolescents qui demeurent non résolus, des descriptions de violence psychique et de torture physique insoutenables (je suis peut-être trop sensible)- un mystère entretenu jusqu'au bout et non résolu : qui était le meurtrier ? et surtout c'est quoi ce "glister" qui suggère la lumière alors qu'on est dans la noirceur tout au long du livre ?Tout ceci aboutit à une déception et une frustration face à ce qui me semble plus un exercice de style qu'une plongée dans la psychologie profonde de l'être humain, malgré certaines incursions (effrayantes), toujours interrompues, d'où le malaise persistant et l'impossibilité d'empathie.A vous de prendre le risque de vous frotter à cet univers s'il vous tente malgré ou justement à cause de mes réserves.

A disturbingly good read!

A wonderful writer, but here I have a sense that the sum is a little less than the parts.