The Holy

Having read and loved some of Quinn's better known work, specifically ISHMAEL, I was pleasantly surprised when I cracked THE HOLY. His message is as strong as ever-humans are still ruining the planet with their selfish notions of entitlement-but Quinn's approach is more subtle than the Socratic conversations of ISHMAEL or MY ISHMAEL. This book is part road novel, part detective novel, and a convincing metaphysical thriller throughout, but it doesn't fall in to the trap of new age hooey that might have convenienced a less skillful writer. Quinn keeps things fresh, strange, beautiful, and cynical enough to keep the most hardened skeptic on board. It's fun, fast reading, and you might actually learn something along the way.

Unlike other reviewers here, I'm a first-time Quinn reader, so I have no idea whether The Holy is his best or not, but I can tell you it's one heck of a book, a true supernatural thriller that I can only compare (favorably) to books like The Shining and Shadowland, with a cast of unforgettable characters that climb off the page right into your head. I opened it the other night after dinner, figuring I'd read till bedtime--wrong! I couldn't quit till I turned the last page at 3 a.m. If I had a couple of books this good to read every week, I'd be in heaven!

Anyone familiar with this author's work knows that there's no one quite like him writing today. It's as if he starts every book saying to his readers, "You think you've got me pegged, don't you. Well, take a look at THIS!" Then he proceeds to write something unlike anything you've ever read (and unlike anything he's ever written).I've read all his books, most of them several times, and I can tell you that in THE HOLY he outdoes himself--and everyone else around. It's in a class of its own. The only book that comes close is John Fowles' THE MAGUS, and I personally think THE HOLY is a better, deeper, and more enthralling novel.In my opinion, the thematic heart of Quinn's novels is not Saving the World (as many might say) but rather The Quest. Quinn's heroes aren't looking for love, happiness, or wealth. They want THE ANSWER--to the profound questions that trouble us all in a world that seems to be going mad. But not all his heroes are asking the same questions (or getting the same answers). Two seemingly unrelated quests drive THE HOLY--both strange, both even a little mad--but they ultimately converge in a maelstrom of passion, violence, death, and transfiguration that is unmatched in any book I've ever read.This isn't just Quinn's best. I honestly can't name a novel that I'd rank above it.

When you read Stephen King or Anne Rice or Clive Barker, you know they're only kidding. They don't really believe in demon-possessed cars, immortal vampires, or faerie worlds hidden in large carpets. When you read The Holy--a novel as fantastic, as gripping, and as terrifying as any produced by King, Rice, or Barker--you'll know that Daniel Quinn isn't kidding. In this regard (and this only), The Holy is similar to The Exorcist, another book by an author who wasn't kidding (it was based on the true story of a child's demonic possession in the 1940s). People reacted powerfully to The Exorcist, both as a book and as a film, because they perceived clearly that William Peter Blatty wasn't just giving them a fright they would later laugh about. (I've always believed The Exorcist probably brought more people to the Roman Catholic Church than The Song of Bernadette did.) Even if you aren't a believer, reading or seeing The Exorcist can make you teeter in your disbelief.Quinn's book will have the same effect on you. It will have the same effect, because you'll recognize that the supernatural realm he's exploring is not one he just made up to give you a scare. It's a realm that humans have acknowledged and taken seriously for as long as there have been humans, a realm familiar to shamans in every land, a realm discussed in the scriptures of every religion (including the Bible), a realm that was alive and thriving before the first humans walked the earth and will be alive and thriving when we're gone. The jacket notes describe the inhabitants of the realm this way: "They knew us before we began to walk upright. Shamans called them guardians, myth-makers called them tricksters, pagans called them gods, churchmen called them demons, folklorists called them shape-shifters. They've obligingly taken any role we've assigned them, and, while needing nothing from us, have accepted whatever we thought was their due--love, hate, fear, worship, condemnation, neglect, oblivion."The publisher describes this as a metaphysical thriller, and it is. But it's also much more. Like any really great book, it's one you'll definitely want to read more than once.

In THE HOLY, a private investigator who is living a dull, eventless life is offered an event. A friend needs a mystery solved: Why did people throughout history turn away from the great eternal, supernatural, omnipotent God that we meet in the major monotheisms and look to the gods of pagans for their deepest needs? Sounds like a job for a PhD in theology, but in this story, it is the task of a reluctant, regular guy. The investigation takes him across the country where he meets individuals that you probably wouldn?t seek out for spiritual advice. Yet, as he begins to explore what these people are saying (and showing) to him, he begins to see things differently. I found myself amazed by the alternative perspectives offered by the people this man visits. I thought I may have finished the book, and then I realized THE HOLY was just beginning! Another man from another place, on an impulse, leaves his job, his home, and his family to journey into no-where. Or at least, no-where any of us have ever gone. I cannot begin to describe the places and experiences that this man encounters in his voyage into this shady, unknown world of mystery. It?s dark, surreal, and even scary at the same time that it?s enchanting and magical. The realizations that this man comes to about himself and about life in general will knock you light-years off your keel. The characters in this book travel intertwining roads in a master-crafted tale of how some ordinary people are presented with opportunities that lead them all over the country, and eventually to those mysterious presenters themselves! This is the shocker that will change the lives of the book?s characters, but will also change the way we see religion, our own lives, and the world itself. If you've ever felt too familiar with life or too shelled in by the world as you know it, this book is your answer.The cover says: "The forbidden gods: Reach out to them, and they will reach back." And when they do, nothing will ever be the same.