The Glister

A Novel

By: John Burnside

Narrated by: John Lee

Leonard, The Glister's 15-year-old narrator, lives in the decaying coastal community of Innertown. Every year or so, a boy from Leonard's school disappears, vanishing into the wasteland of the old chemical plant. Nobody knows where these boys go or whether they are alive or dead, and without evidence to the contrary, the authorities claim they are simply runaways.

The local children want to know the truth, and Leonard takes refuge in the poisoned ruins of the plant, where he renews his friendship with an itinerant ecologist known as Moth Man to discover a shocking truth.

©2008 John Burnside (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"One of the most original and exhilarating reads of the year...an exceptionally rich treasure." ( Guardian)

non thriller

somewhat disappointing, supernatural, non mystery, non thriller. John Lee is excellent, as usual, even with this material. His characters and accents are exceptional

The Sin of Inaction--The Glister

This a dark apocalyptic novel, beautifully written and reverberating with levels of truth. The narrator's scriptural Calvinistic tone adds a dimension of enrichment possible only with the fullness of sound. "The Glister" has the solemnity and beauty of McCarthy's "The Road." It is easily among the finest audible books yet.

nor what I expected- in a good way

This book is on the same plane with some great works of literature. It leaves you thinking. The writing is wonderful. Some of the phrases will haunt you. Full of symbolism and allegory and a bit abstract in that I'm still trying to decide what happened metaphorically and what happened literally.

It takes a little patience in the first 3 chapters, but pay attention because those 3 chapters are important to the story.

I'm not sure why but I was expecting a horror novel or thriller, which it was, but it was more than those things.

The performance was excellent. Great listen.

Literary Thriller

If your tastes run to more literary thrillers, you will love the attention to character, setting, atmosphere and plot John Burnside presents in this spooky mystery. This is no hack-em-up horror potboiler, but rather a thoughtful and quietly devastating tale of murdered children, damaged adults and the effects of greed. Beautifully written and narrated, I enjoyed every moment of this highly absorbing and entertaining audiobook.

I can honestly say that this is the first book....

....to ever cause me to struggle to find the words to describe my thoughts about it. I have thought about it throughout the past few days and I am still at an impasse. I loved the book when it was describing things in an ethereal beautiful way and I hated the book when it would bring out the dark ugly aspects.....so putting that all together I decided to just leave it with 3 stars and realize that some things you just can't put words to....and that's okay.