Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg
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Book Reviews of Falling Angel
Book Review: A Review
Summary: 5 Stars
Great book. It's written very well. Hjortsberg is great author. I couldn't put it down. The novel totally absorbed me. Finished it in two days. The ending totally surprised me. I didn't see that coming. After I finished reading it, I had a nightmare about Louis Cyphre, and luckily I woke up before it ended.Book Review: one of my favorite books!
Summary: 5 Stars
Hands down this is one of the best detective novels that I have ever read. It's very unique, and that's what makes it so entertaining. You will not be able stop reading it until the last page.Book Review: Horror, hard-boiled
Summary: 4 Stars
You'd do best not to read William Hjortsberg's afterword until you've finished reading this gorgeously printed Millepede Press reissue of his 1978 horror novel FALLING ANGEL or you may be unfortunately turned off by his immodest claims that the work is a classic. Because once you've read it you'll see he's right: the novel IS something of a classic in its beautiful and seamless meshing of the horror and hard-boiled detective fiction genres. It's also a splendid evocation of New York City in the year 1958, and may be one of the most finely textured fictional recreations of that era (it's worth reading if only for a beautiful period portrait of the city, from the almost forgotten Hubert's Dime Museum and Flea Circus to the Harlem Meer to the hallways of the Chrysler Building to the mysterious sideshows of Coney Island). It's also a much better work than the Eighties Alan Parker film adaptation ANGEL HEART, starring the excellent Mickey Rourke and the wondrously listless Lisa Bonet.
The work's narrator, the outwardly tough private detective Harry Angel, is hired by a wealthy mysterious dandy named Louis Cyphre to find the whereabouts a missing 1940s crooner named Johnny Favorite; in typical Chandlerian fashion the investigation involves a shady millionaire and his eccentric daughter, menacing policemen, and corrupt doctors. But there's a twist to everything in that Johnny Favorite seems to have been an occult practitioner whom no one liked and who would have done anything and everything to further his career. Some of the novel's more celebrated twists will be anticipated by readers from early in the novel, and this seems to be by design; but its biggest surprise (involving Johnny's actual whereabouts) will probably not be. The prose is exactly what you'd expect from the hard-boiled genre (but is not too overripe), and the atmosphere is spectacular. What probably makes the novel most memorable, however, are the metaphysical implications of its nicely understated conclusion.
Book Review: Good read
Summary: 4 Stars
From all the reviews I expected one of the great horror novels and while this is a good novel, I dont think its great. Part of the problem, at least for me, is I guessed very early on in the novel the big ending. I have never seen the movie and Im not claiming Im the most perceptive reader in the world but the author gives very obvious hints, expecially the name of the client, throughout and the ending wasnt so shocking, at least not to me.
Its well written from a first person POV, the descriptions of 1959 New York put you there and I thought the characters were nicely drawn. There were some surprises and it was a fairly quick read but the big payoff at the end was the payoff I expected so it wasnt as powerful.
Definitely worth the read, though.
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