The Desperate Season

A stellar literary achievement, this first novel is the illumiating account of a schizo-affective young man, Maurice, who is prematurely released from the psych hospital and the events that occur as he decompensates. The story is ingeniously told through the eyes and voices of several characters important in Maurice's life. His mother, her best friend, his sister, father Nathan, and Vince, an attorney who was the boyfriend of Maurice's mother before he was born tell us about Maurice and themselves.The perspective of their memories and the events as they unfold are startling and revealing. As events become known secrets about family relationships are revealed and more importantly the perceptions of reality through the minds of each character are brought to light. This allows the reader to postulate the dynamics that created Maurice's pathology.I am going to definitely keep a lookout for Michel Blaine. He has written a superb foundation for a solid writing career.

I loved the way the words of Mr. Blain's nove flowed. I could see, feel, and sense the conflicts of his characters. The subject matter of the book was disturbing to say the least, however, these are desperate times for our teens. And so much of what we see today in our culture is based upon violence. Mr. Blain's novel takes us on a journer through a highly volitile landscape. And the wintry landscape he sets his story in does much to enhance the sheer power of it's rather complex exposition. Truely a great read. Try it.

This really is a masterpiece. Brilliant prose, compelling characters, a gripping narrative. For whatever reason, the NYTBRrrrr complained about the barn scene, which I thought it was intense. I really liked the fractured narrative, too. It seems ready made for Atom Egoyan: The Sweet Hereafter meets Pulp Fiction. My only quibble is The Blair Witch-style dust jacket. It left me cold as Nathan in that creepy black lake....

The Desperate Season is a haunting and beautifully written novel that will also keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Maurice, a young schizophrenic who goes off his meds, manages to get his hands on a gun with surprising ease. Before long, Maurice is holding his family hostage at gun point and the tension in the novel becomes almost unbearable.This is a story we have all heard and seen before, in one version or another, on television or in newspapers. What is most surprising about The Desperate Season is not the violence but what goes on behind the newspaper headline. Michael Blaine tells his story through six different voices, steadily developing character. This is not a novel about the explosive event, it goes to the deepest levels of character, showing not only who these people are as individuals but also how their behavior changes in the most subtle ways when they interact with each other. Blaine is always at the top of his game here: his prose is electric, his tricky structure is tightly controlled, enabling his characters to shine right along with his page turning plot. The Desperate Season is a kock-out, pure entertainment that also manages to touch the soul.

Michael Blaine's The Desperate Season would disturb any reader at any time, but in post-Columbine America, its story of a disturbed young man with firearms unsettles even more. The richness of the book, however, lies not only in the story, but in how it is told. In addition to creating the point of view of this disturbed young man (Maurice Coleman), Blaine makes us privy to the first-person views of the half-dozen or so characters made up of family and friends who have touched Maurice's life in one way or another, and who will pay a heavy price. By alternating these points of view in different time frames via flashbacks, ranging from minutes to years, the book builds an almost unbearable tension within the reader. If conflict is the stuff of drama, then this book has it in spades; the intricate variety of conflicts we witness in the characters is underscored by a conflict created within ourselves as readers! By deftly exploiting these shifts in time and points of view, the author pits two over-riding narrative desires against each other: the reader's desire to know what happened with the reader's desire to know why it happened. The book is something of the literary equivalent of the Cyclone roller coaster. Hang on for a wild ride.The Desperate Season is at once both timely in its details of character and place, and timeless in its portrayal of a large and colorful palette of human frailty. Although not without humor, this book breaks your heart, as you cry out, "Oh, No!" in response to the inexorable path its characters must take to tragedy. Neat, clean, beautifully sculpted prose, richly drawn characters revealing their deepest secrets, desires and fears, and a narrative that moves you to a gripping climax, make The Desperate Season that rarest thing: a new novel that will be around for a long time. A classic.