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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781566891882
ISBN number: 1566891884
Label: Coffee House Press
Manufacturer: Coffee House Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 218
Printing Date: October 01, 2006
Publishing house: Coffee House Press
Sale Popularity Level: 621758
Studio: Coffee House Press
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Product Description:
When Rudd, a troubled teenager, embarks on a school project, he runs across a series of articles from the 1902 New York Times chronicling a vicious murder committed by the grandson of Brigham Young. Delving deeply into the Mormon ritual of blood sacrifice used in the murders, Rudd, along with his newly discovered half-brother, Lael, becomes swept up in the psychological and atavistic effects of this violent, antique ritual.
As the past and the present become an increasingly tangled knot, Rudd is found at the scene of a multiple murder at a remote campsite with minor injuries and few memories. Lyndi, the daughter of the victims, tries to help Rudd recover his memory and, together, they find a strength unique to survivors of terrible tragedies. But Rudd, desperate to protect Lyndi and unable to let the past be still, tries to manipulate their Mormon wedding ceremony to trick the priests (and God) by giving himself and Lyndi new secret names-names that match the killer and the victim in the one hundred-year-old murder. The nightmare has just begun . . .
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Rated by buyers 
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I probably would have rated this book higher had I not just read an excellent thriller with an even more compelling account of a character's descent into madness. (see all of my reviews if you want to know what that is.) This is a good book, and a thriller with a character descending into madness is defintely a great read as far as I'm concerned. I usually like to mix it up from one book to the next, and I failed to make a good choice this time. This one just didn't cut it compared to the book I finished 2 days ago.
Rated by buyers 
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Evenson's latest novel was given me as a review assignment for a print venue, and I find I must also praise the book here. THE OPEN CURTAIN gave me goosebumps I've never shaken; it brought me terribly close to a razor of a choice -- on the one hand the halting dance of possible human connection, even love, and on the other disgust with our sinful bodies, mere spoiled meat.
The novel's protagonist, Rudd, is half an orphan, the son of a father who killed himself. An ordinary teenage loneliness is thus exacerbated, occasionally to the point of violence, and Rudd's also too bright and imaginative for the constrictions of the Latter Day Saints, his religion, as practiced in the mid-1960s in Provo, Utah. The book's opening chapters throw the boy together with the only companionship he can count on, another teen, Lael or Lyle. This young man may be the son, by another woman, of Rudd's own father. Both maybe-brothers grow obsessed with a controversial Mormon practice, repudiated in their own day, called "blood atonement." According to this notion, old sins are best washed away by spilling new blood.
After that -- as Lael or Lyle becomes more heLL-ish, less an actual person than a diabolic presence -- Rudd's tormented acting-out turns scarier, perhaps murderous. Yet before we're halfway through THE OPEN CURTAIN, the story develops a sunnier track, one parallel to that vicious business. Rudd finds himself drawn together with Lyndi, the college-age survivor of a family that has just been slaughtered.
So this horror show develops into a searing either-or. On one side there's madness, and on the other marriage. Much of the book's second half makes this struggle quite moving, even as its basic elements emerge more clearly: demon Lael versus angel Lyndi.
Evenson has always dealt in shock and brains (see the splendid DARK PROPERTY, in particular), but in this book he works with emotional currency as well. I have a few small reservations about how well he's brought off the exploration of feeling, but I can't fault the attempt, which includes language more direct than before, and a range of reference fittingly middle American. The book's a breakthrough for this author, and well-nigh unique in its embodiment of the fractured heart, at once self-destructive and self-replenishing.
Rated by buyers -
This book made me feel that madness was lurking just on the edge of my life, ready to lunge forward and bite me, or someone I know, with its sharp teeth. It genuinely frightened me. Rudd's private world, where everything is off-kilter or imaginary, is written so effectively that your own world looks a little weird, a little aslant, and you have to shake your head every few pages to clear it. The writing is wonderful, clear and yet complex, and the conception of the novel is incredible.
An absorbing, terrifying, totally addictive experience...but not for the squeamish, or the chick-lit crowd.
Rated by buyers -
One thing that was enjoyable was the tongue-in-cheek humour in the story. Although there might be a serious purpose to this book, or a serious message that we are supposed to take away, there is a significant amount of humor, especially in the very first part of the book. One example is on page 13, where Rudd was getting phrases from the Bible stuck in his head. "He would be eating a sandwich or watching TV all the while thinking, Lo verily." (Evenson, 13)
The ending of this book was so different from the beginning that it might have been a different story. The beginning is like many other books, a story about a person and the people he interacts with. The end is a mix of delusions and reality, which are often hard to differentiate between. We are left wondering what really happened, what didn't, and why?
Rated by buyers -
Evenson takes us deep into the increasingly demented mind of young Rudd and into the inner workings of the Mormon Church. The passage regarding the marriage of Rudd and Lyndi was especially ghoulish, and, apparently too accurate for many Mormons. Carefully crafted and tautly written, we descend into madness with your Rudd as he unravels and lives out the nightmare of a historical murder that took place in the early 1900s. Very creepy at times, the novel is well worth reading and held the tension through the end.
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