I’m not gonna lie to you—there’s a whole lot of skeevy business going on in this book. A lot of skeevy business that amounts to plenty of reasons and excuses not to read it, but they all revolve around the subject matter. WARNING: If anything around pedophilia is a hard ‘No’ as far as reading material, look away. Seriously, very far away. This isn’t Nabokov’s Lolita. Well, it is – kind of. But those moments in the aforementioned book that merely made you (appropriately) uncomfortable, pale in comparison to some of the scenes you’ll tumble headfirst into here. There is sadness and desperation here. This is a gruesome story.If you’re like me, and love nothing more than reading about human creatures that are decidedly NOT within your comfort zone, I’m happy to report, this book might be of interest. In the same way Kevin Bacon in “The Woodsman” was riveting. I sure couldn’t relate to or sympathize with either protagonist, but it’s a close-up slice of life that’s vastly different than mine. Disturbing and utterly fascinating. This book is told from the perspective of a jailed pedophile reminiscing about one of his victims, while simultaneously communicating via letter with a young woman who has a taste for pre-pubescent boys. So yeah, this isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy reading.But, if you would allow me a moment to make my case:“We of great seniority, awaiting our senility, the complete forgetfulness of the sensual, live with the memory of softness, of impossible tenderness—something far too subtle for our weathered fingertips to comprehend were we even to come upon it now in this deteriorated condition.” At this point in the story, our pedophile narrator is lamenting the onset of age, how his body has gone to seed, and just decided he hates his cellmate (lover) because the man has performed an intimate sexual act on him and our pedophile muses, “That Clayton finds this attractive, something he can put himself close to, is the final straw. I have no feeling for him.”Our pedophile prefers young girls, and although the sex in prison is out of necessity, there is a sort of relationship that has developed between him and his cellmate. Now, re-read that quote above and tell me this: if you didn’t know it to be the words of a pedophile, would you find it poignant? This book has a few of those kinds of moments, and it's one of the things I found fascinating about it. That it could intrigue and repulse me. I guess the challenge here is, rather than judge the book by the subject matter and the repugnance it immediately elicits, take this story for what it has to offer. It is well written, and brings the reader as close as anyone wants to be to knowing what a pedophile might be thinking or experiencing. “I don’t want to know what a pedophile is thinking and feeling!” you say. To which I respond, “Well, neither do I. I also don’t want to look at what the idiots running my government are able to screw up on a daily basis, I don’t like looking at human suffering, I’m not so crazy about ASPCA commercials, or stories about the rape of women in countries as foreign to me as the pronunciations of their names. And yet…”There are things we have to look at, don’t we? If we want to say we’re an active and participating part of this grand fabric of humans sharing a planet and resources. Ugly things, things that piss us off, things we think are tacky, gross, absurd—the list goes on and on; one only has to click their television remote and flip around for mere seconds before it is impossible not to trip over such auspicious offerings as toddler beauty pageants, Obnoxious Housewives of Whereverthef*ck, and bachelors sorting through marriage material from a smorgasbord of nubile females while sitting in a hot tub. I think it’s safe to say we’ve no shortage of repugnance out there, folks.If you read only for entertainment (and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that) and don’t like anything heavy, this story might not be for you. But if you read so that you might be challenged by things you don’t understand, give this one a try.If I’m to judge the book on its merits (and not the offensiveness of its content and my reaction to that based on my own sense of morality) it is well written… captivating even, in the way that only good storytelling can be—when your sensory processing center starts working overtime and the input you’re receiving goes well beyond the words.
i just realized my "greg gets three" shelf only has one. i am a failure.greg told me to write a review for this book, and i started to think about it, and realized this is going to be one of those reviews that will reflect poorly upon me when my enthusiasm for the book is weighed up against the subject matter. so - a warning.***it is an ungentle book. you can stop reading here if you are not into the rough stuff.***basically, it is about a man in jail for being humbert humbert with a knife. his lolita was named alice. hence. now, enter a nineteen-year-old girl who is hatching her own plan to consummate her desire for a very young boy. she wants someone to commiserate with about her exploits, and who better to "get" her drive? best pen pals ever.a.m. homes does not hold back here. and i may sound sexist, but that fact that a woman wrote this book is astonishing to me. not because of the violence or the subject matter - that's just nouns and verbs. but the level of detail, and the tone, and when she writes in the voice of the various male characters,there is a pervasive masculine sensibility that sounds completely authentic. (and,yes, those are also nouns and verbs - don't fight me when you know what i mean)the book is gross and uncomfortable and is far and away the best thing she has ever written. and i wish i liked her other books as much as i like this one. the others were fine, but to me this was a perfect book. music for torching got outta hand at the end there - just silly. but this has just the right mix of tenderness and danger. she tells a difficult story, and she tells it well. and manages to have a very convincing masculine voice throughout. (even though she is a woman whose actual voice sounds so cute like sara vowell's.) and of course, the impulse here as a writer of more-literary-than-just-shock-value material would be to humanize the convict and make him all cuddly and sympathetic and make the girl, who is still free and among us, into the real monster. but she doesn't do that, which is such a relief. she gives some backstory, and some explanation, but it never really humanizes him. he remains a monster, although a more overt monster than the girl, with her ponytail babysitting and tennis lessons. with her dirty smelly young boy who saves his scabs to snack on. i am so thankful that i cannot relate to how these kids are supposed to be sex objects.it's true that in lolita she is also a dirty little kid, not the image of a nymphette that has grown up after her.and, if you are not similarly inclined, you should wonder what the attraction would be. it is even more pronounced in this book, when the object is a young boy. she loves him in his distraction, his stinkiness, his boyishness. it is powerfully realized, if still (again - gratefully) obscure.so - yeah, a great book about terrible things. and another reviewer claims this book is bad and that zombie by joyce carol oates is a better treatment of the same subject matter, but that is crazy-talk. zombie is bad. really. bad. don't do it.
What do You think about The End Of Alice (1997)?
I suppose I picked up this book because I felt something akin to the emotion of having been "double-dog-dared". I have read a few of A.M Homes short stories (the one that springs to mind is the one about the boy and the barbie doll), and enjoyed them immensely, and greatly admired her writing style and unusual subject matter. Like a lot of people (whether or not they admit it), I do enjoy being horrified, grossed out, disgusted and mildly traumatized by art. Books and movies that people hype as being extremely disturbing, raunchy, racy, horrifying, etc, rarely bother me to the extent that I'm led to believe I will be bothered. So obviously, after reading the summary, and the reviews, I felt like I just needed to see if it was all true. It was.The book details the correspondence between an incarcerated pedophile (who has been locked up for twenty-three years), and a burgeoning female pedophile- the latter of whom is nineteen years old with sights set on the twelve year old neighbor boy. Our narrator, the former of the two, lured me in with his Humbert-reminiscent articulation. Like someone standing at the oceans edge, rip-current well concealed, I dipped my toe in, then my foot. And then it was too late for me. By the end of this book, I felt assaulted. I hope I do not trivialize the horrors of being victimized by a pedophile by saying that, but it was how I felt. I feel like the first few chapters of the book "groomed" me for the lurid and sickening descriptions of pedophilic rape, incest, and torture that followed. There were several moments where I thought " I know what she is about to describe, but surely she wont be that graphic " , and then she WAS, and then some. By the end of it I felt like I'd been forcibly subjected to it all against my will and was then left to deal alone- desolate, and shameful.I made it through the whole book basically trying to answer the question "why the hell am I reading this?". I know better than to look for a "happy ending" or anything redeeming, so why? Did I take pleasure in reading about the torture of children? NO. Did I enjoy being disgusted? Well yes, but not to that extent. Maybe just to push my limits. I still don't know. It has been said that this book is a gratuitous piece of filth, and worse, that it is the kind of child pornography in the written form that a true pedophile would get off on. I fear the latter might be true. But it is more than just a piece of filth. Homes stated in an interview that she desired to narrate from the perspective of a murderer, a sex-offender of the worst kind. That it wasn't a place that many authors had dared to go. And she did it well. Maybe too well. I felt that "Chappy" was a living, breathing being, locked up in the prison just a few towns over. The major conflict I keep going through in my head was this: did this book really need to be written? Our culture is so inundated with shows like "to catch a predator" and to an extent, sensationalizes sexual crimes with shows like Law and Order SVU. I would argue that it is thrilling to watch things like these, and then tell ourselves it's ok to be thrilled because of the punitive nature of these shows. We feel glorious and self righteous in our hate for people like Chappy and the nineteen year old, and take glee in their punishment. We are never forced to actually go inside their heads, or consider their upbringing. PLEASE NOTE that I believe child molesters deserve everything they get, and maybe more. However, this book doesn't smack with said self-righteousness. If you expect that Homes is going to come in and make you feel ok about the sickening slurry of horror-arousal you may feel throughout this book by shivving the main charachter, she wont. And this is what makes her a truly great writer. She pushes our heads in and says "LOOK" in such a subtle way, it is hard to tear away. And makes us confront sides of ourselves we may not have wanted to in the process.
—Clarissa
Ok, I get Lolita. I get American Psycho (even think it might be a work of genius). I don't get this one. Yet another exploration of the mindset of a truly sick fuck. Sections of this book are just gross beyond belief. Ok, it's well described (but I can't even say the prose uplifts or illuminates or sheds understanding in any way -- nor does anything stick because it's a phrase that just had to be written). The content though -- if you're looking for something that sickens you to the stomach, this one will do the trick.If A.M. Homes is hoping to skirt as close to the line between literature and pornographic filth, this one is a tour de force, it comes dangerously close. The final rolldown to credits...it's as if Homes herself can no longer abide her monster. The last section of what happened with Alice is told in warp speed. My humble opinion ---- if you're going to write about totally sick subject matter (one that might give the sick whacks out there a few good ideas), you'd better damn well blow me away with something worth my time (not this mediocre attempt at literary apotheosis).Feel free to disagree -- frankly, I'd love to hear a different opinion. What an absolute waste of time this was.
—Elaine
Another reviewer said this was "a great book about terrible things"-PERFECTLY said. This was probably the darkest, most disturbing (and so gross in many, many parts) stories I've ever read-but it was so well written and paced. The main characters are two demented pedophiles, one in prison and one writing to him. One male, one female, but both twisted. Their letters and stories are obviously grotesque but also a kind of cat and mouse game between them. I don't know how to recommend this book without looking freaky for liking it, but I had to find out what happened at the end. No matter how many "dark" or "banned" books you've read, I really think this one is darker, probably...but captivating if you can get thru the icky scenes, which are numerous. You've been warned, about ten times now!
—Craig Allen
