muddypuddle's review against another edition
3.0
There were parts of this book that were hard from me to imagine....because there are a lot of references to photography and processing film, that sort of thing. The setting, in downeast Maine in winter, I can imagine. It's dreary, poor, bleak. The protagonist, Cassandra Neary, is one of the most unlikable characters I've come across. But that makes her incredibly interesting, actually. I'm guessing she's around 40, friendless, a kleptomaniac, hardly eats, survives on Jim Beam and speed. A real downer. This was quite a story, somewhat of a mystery, but more of a contemporary realistic fiction that skirts the edge of a really dark, somewhat bizarre (though real, unfortunately) world. (And I will go on to read another, because I liked it more than I didn't....)
eak1013's review against another edition
5.0
A book so exquisitely tailored to my own tastes, with the added bonus of writing that's just violently good.
I mean. The seedy side of New York punk (which, you know, is actually saying something). Photography as a metaphor and a plot point and descriptions of which make my eyes ache to see these photos that don't exist. Creepy small town Maine. Almost noir-y mystery, with Adderall and crystal meth in addition to the hard-drinking whiskey. A mystery that sneaks up on you, that hits so many of the genre notes but only in retrospect, because you're too wrapped up in the messy sprawl of a heroine. Sex and sexuality as a matter of course. Creepy, horrific violence that is not about the fetishization of dead women. The merest whiff of fantasy/supernatural which adds to the story but is not necessary to explain the plot. Women, many women, being deeply, profoundly fucked up, without moralizing about their fucked uppedness.
And that's just the story. There's also what the author does with words, the way she slides them between your ribs like a knife, leaving you bleeding and delighted at the same time.
I mean. The seedy side of New York punk (which, you know, is actually saying something). Photography as a metaphor and a plot point and descriptions of which make my eyes ache to see these photos that don't exist. Creepy small town Maine. Almost noir-y mystery, with Adderall and crystal meth in addition to the hard-drinking whiskey. A mystery that sneaks up on you, that hits so many of the genre notes but only in retrospect, because you're too wrapped up in the messy sprawl of a heroine. Sex and sexuality as a matter of course. Creepy, horrific violence that is not about the fetishization of dead women. The merest whiff of fantasy/supernatural which adds to the story but is not necessary to explain the plot. Women, many women, being deeply, profoundly fucked up, without moralizing about their fucked uppedness.
And that's just the story. There's also what the author does with words, the way she slides them between your ribs like a knife, leaving you bleeding and delighted at the same time.
lisagray68's review against another edition
4.0
Whoa. This is a pretty gritty mystery series. The third book got great reviews, so I decided to start with the first and read the whole thing. This protagonist is one messed up girl, that's for sure. Not for the faint hearted, this. But kept me page turning during one long flight. On to the second....
ericgaryanderson's review against another edition
4.0
This is an amazingly streamlined gothic suspense novel with a druggin', boozin', pretty much washed-up NYC punk photographer as its first-person narrator. She goes up to the Maine coast in pursuit of an interview with another woman photographer who's a lot like her, only in her 70s. Quiet mayhem ensues. The narrative really propels the story in a good way, and Hand is really good at evoking a wide variety of exteriors and interiors: crappy early 60s motel decor, eco-postmodern houses on desolate islands, the islands themselves. You might not emphathize with the narrator or understand why she does some of the things she does, but all in all this is an expertly paced, beautifully constructed book.
biondeletture's review against another edition
2.0
Mi aspettavo qualcosa di più leggendo la sinossi e guardando la copertina. Sicuramente si sente che l'autrice viene dal mondo fantasy, molte cose sono un po' campate in aria, e forse più che un thriller è un romanzo sulla fotografia... Attimi di tensione solamente verso la fine, e a sprazzi, in un susseguirsi di immagini surreali e difficili da mettere insieme. Per non parlare dei refusi (AIUTO!) che rendono snervante la lettura. Spero che dalla mia edizione ad oggi almeno questo sia stato sistemato, ma non vi consiglio di leggerlo per scoprirlo.
elizafiedler's review against another edition
4.0
Death through the eye of a photographer. It's a disturbing, engaging twist on the "eccentric celebrity drops dead and I don't want to get blamed for it" scenario. Definitely going to read the next one in the series.
metaphorosis's review against another edition
3.0
I first encountered Elizabeth Hand via her debut novel, [b:Winterlong|102888|Winterlong|Elizabeth Hand|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171487713s/102888.jpg|1407454]. I thought it was great, if a bit opaque, and I liked her subsequent books, [b:Æstival Tide|351967|Æstival Tide|Elizabeth Hand|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1301587659s/351967.jpg|2026081] and [b:Icarus Descending|351965|Icarus Descending|Elizabeth Hand|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1218845765s/351965.jpg|342194], almost as much. Slightly earlier, I had also discovered similar writer [a:Richard Grant|74343|Richard Grant|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg], and was surprised to find they were a couple. I liked them both, but in my mind, both went wrong when they started writing less SFF and more contemporary, real world fantasy. In Hand's case, with [b:Glimmering|351964|Glimmering|Elizabeth Hand|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173998036s/351964.jpg|1083404].
In Generation Loss, Cass Neary, a small-town girl turned big-city punk photographer has spent twenty years doing drugs, having sex, and having once been slightly famous. She heads to Maine to interview a more famous has-been photographer, and things go bad.
Cass is an amoral, unlikeable character. That can work fine, especially in third person. Hand, though, uses a first person perspective, and she doesn't pull it off. Cass goes around doing amoral things, but there's never any reflection or introspection that explains why. She clearly recognizes that, for example, stealing and hiding someone's car keys is not a good thing to do, but she does it anyway. Aside from plot convenience, we never learn why she does it or how she feels about it. It's just one of those things - she's outwardly a bad person. Again, that might work, except that we're seeing the action from her point of view, and she appears to have no opinion about it.
Hand seems to go out of her way to concoct a stereotype - gritty, dark, and pretentious all at once. Must the music be Patti Smith and John Coltrane? Despite her limited life of drugs and sex, Cass seems to have managed to learn a lot about not only photography, but furniture and wine. She walks into one room in a decrepit house on a Maine island, and we learn that it's full of "Twentieth Century Danish Modern furniture. Arne Jacobsen chairs, a cane and bamboo Jacobsen Slug chair, a beautifully spare Klint dining table." To be honest, I don't know or care what any of this is. But I find it hard to accept that a ne'er do well who's spent her life in crappy apartments can pick all this out at a glance. Hand seems to feel the need to drop names - especially in photography. This is more excusable, since the protagonist is a photographer. But in the space of four paragraphs, she mentions: Warhol, Schnabel, Koons, Curtins; Chris Mars, Joe Coleman; Lori Field, Nick Blinko; Fred Ressler, Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, Lee Friedlander, Brian Belott, Branka Jukic. I don't know who most of these people are. I'm sure it's fun for photography and modern art aficionados, but to an average reader, it's overkill. I got the point way back - Cass knows photography.
Despite all this, and a plot that seems to cry out "Make me into a horror film, please!", there's no denying Hand's stylistic skill. Sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, Generation Loss is well written. It was more than enough to get me to finish the book with some enjoyment. It's not enough to get me interested in the sequel, out next year. In fact, much as I admire her writing, and much as I approve of doing new things, I'm not sure I'm in Hand's audience any more.
In brief - if you're looking for a return to Hand's early work, look elsewhere. If you want gritty, dark, well written horror, this is the book for you, especially if you're excited about photography.
In Generation Loss, Cass Neary, a small-town girl turned big-city punk photographer has spent twenty years doing drugs, having sex, and having once been slightly famous. She heads to Maine to interview a more famous has-been photographer, and things go bad.
Cass is an amoral, unlikeable character. That can work fine, especially in third person. Hand, though, uses a first person perspective, and she doesn't pull it off. Cass goes around doing amoral things, but there's never any reflection or introspection that explains why. She clearly recognizes that, for example, stealing and hiding someone's car keys is not a good thing to do, but she does it anyway. Aside from plot convenience, we never learn why she does it or how she feels about it. It's just one of those things - she's outwardly a bad person. Again, that might work, except that we're seeing the action from her point of view, and she appears to have no opinion about it.
Hand seems to go out of her way to concoct a stereotype - gritty, dark, and pretentious all at once. Must the music be Patti Smith and John Coltrane? Despite her limited life of drugs and sex, Cass seems to have managed to learn a lot about not only photography, but furniture and wine. She walks into one room in a decrepit house on a Maine island, and we learn that it's full of "Twentieth Century Danish Modern furniture. Arne Jacobsen chairs, a cane and bamboo Jacobsen Slug chair, a beautifully spare Klint dining table." To be honest, I don't know or care what any of this is. But I find it hard to accept that a ne'er do well who's spent her life in crappy apartments can pick all this out at a glance. Hand seems to feel the need to drop names - especially in photography. This is more excusable, since the protagonist is a photographer. But in the space of four paragraphs, she mentions: Warhol, Schnabel, Koons, Curtins; Chris Mars, Joe Coleman; Lori Field, Nick Blinko; Fred Ressler, Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, Lee Friedlander, Brian Belott, Branka Jukic. I don't know who most of these people are. I'm sure it's fun for photography and modern art aficionados, but to an average reader, it's overkill. I got the point way back - Cass knows photography.
Despite all this, and a plot that seems to cry out "Make me into a horror film, please!", there's no denying Hand's stylistic skill. Sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, Generation Loss is well written. It was more than enough to get me to finish the book with some enjoyment. It's not enough to get me interested in the sequel, out next year. In fact, much as I admire her writing, and much as I approve of doing new things, I'm not sure I'm in Hand's audience any more.
In brief - if you're looking for a return to Hand's early work, look elsewhere. If you want gritty, dark, well written horror, this is the book for you, especially if you're excited about photography.
jeregenest's review against another edition
5.0
Generation Loss is about Cass, a casualty of the punk rock generation, one who barely limped out of it. This era is a great inspiration to Hand’s creativity and I certainly don’t mind that she keeps returning to it. Cass is a photographer who has an interesting view of the world, and most of the book hinges on strange and different ways of viewing the world, mostly through a camera lens, but like most of Hand’s book it dwells on creativity in a myriad of forms, including music a big concern of hers. This makes sense given how primal music is.
Photography is very important and the title has multiple, very important, meanuings.
Hand uses an island on Maine as a setting, and captures much of the winter crazinesss and bleakness well.
This book also drops names to other Hand books, including Cass being from Kamensic.
Unlike most of Hand’s books this is not straight fantasy (it has hints that something more is going n but the characters are probably just crazy). Generation Loss is difficult to classify, uncomfortable, spiky. She both fights with and against the conventions of the thriller genre to get at an evil deeper than its mere perpetrator. When the killer is revealed, it's more a confirmation of dread than a surprise. So although Generation Loss moves like a thriller, it detonates with greater resound. Highly recommended.
Photography is very important and the title has multiple, very important, meanuings.
Hand uses an island on Maine as a setting, and captures much of the winter crazinesss and bleakness well.
This book also drops names to other Hand books, including Cass being from Kamensic.
Unlike most of Hand’s books this is not straight fantasy (it has hints that something more is going n but the characters are probably just crazy). Generation Loss is difficult to classify, uncomfortable, spiky. She both fights with and against the conventions of the thriller genre to get at an evil deeper than its mere perpetrator. When the killer is revealed, it's more a confirmation of dread than a surprise. So although Generation Loss moves like a thriller, it detonates with greater resound. Highly recommended.
dylan_james's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
marlenshh's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5