My first professional submission of 2008

Well, I did it. I submitted my first, well, anything to a  publication in a long time. Nothing fancy mind you, just a book review. It spawned from winning an online contest on a popular book site, with the prize being a free copy of an upcoming release delivered straight to your door from the publisher.

So I figured what the heck, write a review and send it in.

It was hard to plow through the book at first. For a moment or two I got tangled in long, twisting passages that seemed to go nowhere. When I complained about this my wife said, and I quote: "That's just because it's different than your writing. Your writing is simple."

Cue my jaw dropping open. She scrambled to recover: "Not . . not.bad or anything, per se. . .. Just simple. You know. Like . . like, uh, like Hemingway!"

Ok, so I exaggerate; it's always fun to paint a spouse as a villian. Once my jaw dropped she actually said "I like your writing, but it's simpler, more down to earth. His style is different."

 To quote Hawthorne: Easy Reading is Hard Writing.

Anyhow the book picked up steam and wound up being a pretty good read. Here's a copy of the review (and I hope its presence here doesn't void any potential publishing opportunities):

* * *

Now You See Him

By Eli Gottlieb

ISBN: 9780061284649

262 pages

William Morrow, $22.95

By the time Now You See Him begins Rob Castor is dead and buried, reduced to nothing more than a lingering and tawdry story in the tabloids.

But make no mistake: Nick Framingham may be the narrator of the novel, but the story is Rob Castor's at every turn.

Now You See Him is the sophomore effort by award winning author Eli Gottlieb, who returns after a decade's absence with a novel of friendship, obsession, secrets, and the ever present clash between the nostalgic memories of the past and the harsh reality of the present.

Nick Framingham and Rob Castor were childhood friends and neighbors, but from the start Rob seemed destined for something more than their small, upstate New York town could provide him. While Nick would marry and settle down, Rob would become a minor celebrity as a writer - and a national obsession when he murdered his girlfriend and then committed suicide.

In the wake of his friend's death Nick is unable to resume his normal life. His marriage to his college sweetheart continues to deteriorate, with his wife unable to empathize with his loss as she is increasingly drawn to another man. His sons grow distant and his job performance puts his career in jeopardy.

It will only get worse.

Like a siren call Rob's family begins to draw Nick further into the chaos that envelopes anyone who grew close to the writer. Rob's mother, a bitter and alcoholic widow, is quick to wound with harsh words and hint at something sinister as yet unspoken. His sister, Nick's old flame, returns to town and seems eager to resume their relationship, further putting his marriage in jeopardy.

And somewhere beneath the surface lies a pair of secrets that will consume two families and haunt Nick for the rest of his life.

The publisher calls Gottlieb's prose 'extraordinarily luxuriant and evocative' and it is - but at some cost. Gottlieb has a knack for spinning a memorable and breathtaking phrase, but at times he tries too hard.

For every " . . .we found the quiet itself a fraught, richly communicating thing. If we listened carefully enough, we were certain that the distances had a hiss; that trees sighed, even on windless days; that clouds breathed their way backwards across the sky," there are four passages that seem strained and cumbersome, filler created not to fulfill a page count but that of a silent, self-assured quota of talent on display.

If at times, and only at times, the prose inhibits the reader's enjoyment, the framework of the story itself never fails to keep your interest. What seems at first like a pedestrian story about loss amid a midlife crisis soon morphs into a blistering attack on every facet of Nick's life, with a final plot revelation that changes the entire foundation of Nick's existence and how you relate to him.

All of these plot twists, each change in Nick's life, big and small, flow from his relationship with Rob. It is as if his death has broken a dam of long suppressed pain and secrecy and allowed the water to wash away every iota of what Nick thought was safe and secure.

Not bad for a character who only appears in flashbacks, and then usually at the lowest ebb of his life.

Now You See Him is an impressive and deceptively complicated novel about friendship, love, and the steep cost of living a lie, even one deferred. It's an impressive sophomore effort by Eli Gottlieb and no doubt a precursor of things to come.

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Tags: Eli Gottlieb, book review, Now You See Him