David Long (1)Critiques

Very detailed flow of words. A little lengthy at times, but perhaps that was necessary to convey the feeling. It would be interesting to further analyze Long's style of writing and how the themes connect, as well as the way he chose to end this novel. The reader has several possible outcomes, yet is left with an amount of resolution also.

Long was apparently tired of being a writer's writer, so he read some Anne Tyler to try figure out how to be more accessible.  So, what we've got here, imo, is blah blah blah *L*iterary pretentiousness about people who refuse to take responsibility for their own happiness.  At least Tyler's ppl we can care about.  These just disappoint me.½

David Long is a master--a master craftsman of sentences and a master storyteller. He's proof-positive that the outlines of the story don't matter as much to make a good read (the story here is pretty simple: about a transgression in a marriage), as it does how the story is told. Each of the characters here is fully-fleshed, so that in coming to know them, the reader comes to feel what they do. Fully flawed, they become very real.

There's wisdom here, too. I usually give my books away after I read them. This one is a keeper.

I really enjoyed this, very thoughtful meditation on suicide and the transient choices we all make. A good love story, too, if you don't require a happy ending.

I really enjoyed this, very thoughtful meditation on suicide and the transient choices we all make. A good love story, too, if you don't require a happy ending.

"The Inhabited World" is an unusual ghost story in the sense that the ghost himself might be the most confused character in the novel and that the word “ghost” is never once mentioned in the book. Evan Malloy finds himself trapped in and around the house in which he killed himself ten years earlier, having no idea why any of this is happening to him. All he knows is that he is unable to leave the property and that the only things he knows about since his death are events that have occurred under his direct observation (although he sometimes reads newspapers and computer screens over the shoulders of the current residents of his old home). He has no idea if his father is still alive or how his wife and step-daughter have managed since his death but does know a few things about world events, not a combination of knowledge that gives him any comfort.

Author David Long recounts Evan Malloy’s story in flashback, the story of a young man who ruined his first marriage by giving in to the temptation of a short affair with a co-worker only to eventually be given a second chance at happiness years later when he remarries his ex-wife and creates a new family with her and her daughter. But even this regained happiness is not enough to keep Evan from being overwhelmed by a depressive state that only ends when he pulls the trigger of the pistol that his wife brought to their second marriage.

It is when Maureen Keniston moves into the house that Evan finds himself caring for one of the house’s new residents for the first time. Maureen has come to the house as part of her effort to hide from the doctor at whose hands she has suffered an abusive relationship for the past two years. Evan feels a certain kinship with the woman and her situation and, although she is unable to sense his presence, Evan feels so protective of her that he attempts to give her the advice she needs in order to remain strong enough to break off the destructive affair.

Eventually the reader comes to realize that Evan Malloy may not be a ghost, after all, and that he is something more akin to Maureen’s guardian angel. Perhaps the reason for his own personal purgatory has been revealed to him. Considering his subject matter, David Long has managed to turn what could have easily been a depressing book into a rather inspirational one that requires his readers to look at life through the eyes of someone who has been there and realizes that he gave up on it too soon.

Rated at 3.5½

"Mine was a surmountable despair. I just didn't. Surmount it." You feel the joy of language the delight of using a work like surmount, the small quiet thril of that heart stopping hesitation.
Death like life is sill a time for learning and self discovery for Evan. His redemption is found when he finds the answers to a life-ill spent and he imparts some of that knowledge to the lost woman who shares his home.

Despite its unlikely premise, that the dead (suicide) hero still inhabits his house, this was really good. He takes us back to his and the new owner of his houses's failed relationships in an engrossing way. I'll have to read more of his stuff.½

Sigh, yet another novel that starts off with an interesting premise, seemingly interesting characters and then slides downhill to an ending that's deeply unsatisfying. Evan Molloy committed suicide ten years ago and his spirit hangs around his old house. He watches with interest the comings and goings of the various people who lived there after him down to the present, when a woman moves in, escaping an unhappy love affair. Interspersed with various flashbacks of Molloy's life, his afterlife, he watches her try to get her own life together. And that's about it.

4 sisters in Montana in 1950s & 60s; marriage & sibling adultery

10.98