The God of War

Marisa Silver's 'The God of War' is an absorbing and elegant novel. A story of darkness, despair, disappointment, and doubt. Ares Ramirez, the 12 year old protagonist and narrator of this work spends his days helping to care for his younger brother Malcolm, whom Ares dropped on his head as a baby, and lives each day with the guilt of this, as he watches his brother struggle to communicate and to live. Ares, Malcolm, and their mother Laurel all live in a trailer in the less than lively area of Bombay Beach, on the shore of a man-made lake, and closeby to government bomb testing. When difficulties arise at school, Malcolm begins work with the school Librarian, Mrs. Poole, to try to enhance his communication and development skills. As he accompanies his younger brother to these weekly sessions in the Pooles' home, Ares feels a strong pull to Mrs. Poole, and is intrigued to meet her foster son, Kevin, who is a few years older than Ares, and much more despondant and 'empty inside'. Kevin's release from a juvenile detention facility enhances and complicates Ares' life far more than he ever anticipated. What follows is breathtaking, tragic, heart-wrenching, and poignant, as Ares befriends a boy far more 'hollow' than himself. The conclusion of this novel, while I will not spoil it for those who have not yet read it, will touch even the hardest of hearts. A wonderful read, and the kind of novel that makes you wish for twice or three times the number of pages, so that (no matter how dark the subject matter) the story would go on and on. Highly recommended, and I look forward to more titles from the same author.

A truly stunning novel that simultaneously captures the essence of the Salton Sea and its peoples along with the timeless struggle of a boy becoming a man with the wrenching changes manhood brings. EXPERTLY written and most decidedly a page turner. I'm a Salton Sea reclamation advocate and this novel did justice to the Salton Sea and the people who live there. This is an amazing book. Buy it! Tell friends!

This book was so much more than I thought it would be upon choosing it. The setting of this book, Bombay Beach and Slab City on the Salton Sea in far Southern California, is one I had not heard of since my school days but in the hands of Marisa Silver becomes a character in and of itself. If you decide to read this book take a quick peek at google and hit some of the pictures of Bombay Beach & Slab City and the Salton Sea and get this place in your mind's eye. It makes the book that much richer. Ares, Malcolm and Laurel's dilapidated trailer home inhabits it's own little world and I am glad I visited.

This profound exploration of what it means to be family is set by The Salton Sea. Located in the southeastern corner of California, this vast body of water is actually a lake, the largest in California and a huge magnet for birds and other forms of wildlife. But the very things that make this lake so unique are placing the Sea's existence at risk. Also at risk is the twelve-year old Ares, who lives in a ramshackle trailer in the town of Bombay Beach, on the edge of the Sea with his free-spirited mother, Laurel and his severely autistic younger brother, Malcolm. A thoughtful and introspective boy, Ares seems content to be with just this "solitary family of three,' even as he lives an enchanted life in this run-down desert outpost, under the spell of his mother, who conjures a life for them out of nothing. In Laurel's world milk crates are upended to become chairs, and discarded cardboard boxes from the grocery story are covered with madras bedspreads and transformed into coffee tables. A woman who can't bear to be hemmed in by other people, Laurel manages as best she can, working as a therapeutic masseuse, while Ares shoulders the lion's share of Malcolm's care, looking out for him at school and deflecting the cruelties of Malcolm's classmates. Although he grew up with great physical freedom and a mother who obviously loves him, Ares has few friends; he and his mother are content to eschew that few rules that may conflict with their privacy with Laurel of the conviction that society has little to offer them. Ultimately, however, Ares blames himself for a terrible accident involving Malcolm, the memory always coming alive to him just, as it was five years earlier. Over time, the disbelief, the fear, and a first nearly imperceptible seed of guilt has taken root inside of him and steadily grows. In the end, the accident left Malcolm a damaged boy, unable to speak, forever trapped in his own little world, his head facing towards the sky perhaps wishing he could fly like the birds that fly across the desert towards the water, "their pale wings reflected the sun like sails on a boat." Hoping to somehow escape the misery of his culpability and the minefield of recriminations that he's convinced he stumbles across daily, Ares forms a friendship with the kindly librarian Mrs. Poole, partly because he's angry at his mother for her fierce but sometimes neglectful love, and for not doing enough for Malcolm, and also angry at his brother, as just for once, he would have liked his brother to look at him like he really knew who he was. When Mrs. Poole offers to work with Malcolm on his speech, Ares takes the opportunely to spend some time at her house and is almost at once spellbound by the way her home speaks so simply of a life different from the one that he knows. Like a dream or a heroic fantasy, Ares feels trapped between a life he had once enjoyed and one that now feels miserable and lonely and bitter. His time with Mrs. Poole not only gives him a

Marisa Silver's new book is about love somehow surviving in the most challenging of places and in the most imperfect of people. Set in the one of the few truly unique places left in this country - the Salton Sea - Silver's story is hard to forget once you've read it. A terrific book.