Before the Fall - Noah Hawley - Review and Giveaway

Noah Hawley is an incredibly talented writer. His highly anticipated new novel, Before the Fall, releases today. And I have two copies to giveaway to two lucky readers!

Eleven people board a private plane for a short flight from Martha's Vineyard to New York City. Sixteen minutes into the flight the plane crashes. The only survivors are a four year old boy and the last minute addition to the flight - a down on his luck painter. The three crew members, the wealthy owner, his wife, daughter, bodyguard as well as his also wealthy friend and his wife all perish.

The media storm surrounding the survivors is immediate. As the search for the plane and bodies gets underway, speculation, theories and conspiracies abound.....with the media providing ample fuel.

Hawley takes us back to before the plane crashes - exploring each character's past until the moment they step on the plane. Each person's story is rich and full. This is what I love about Hawley's writing - the completeness of it. Even though we only have a short time to hear each character's voice before the crash, their backstories keep them firmly in the present. But it was Scott and young JJ that held me enthralled as they try to come to terms with having survived and navigate the media circus.

As more details and confirmations emerge from the present investigation, each 'before' story adds another possible reason or act that could have contributed to or caused the crash. Which character is it? Or was it simply an accident? That mystery is only revealed in the final few chapters.

"Everyone is from someplace. We all have stories, our lives unfolding along crooked lines, colliding in unexpected ways."

Hawley delivers a blistering look at how media shapes our opinions, our lives and the public's thirst for sensational and lurid details about someone else's life. A sense of entitlement to know and expose those details to the world. And how that can affect lives and outcomes.

The publisher has attached the 'thriller' label to this book. I don't quite agree with that, but I do agree that it's a heck of a good read. Read an excerpt of Before the Fall.

Noah Hawley is an Emmy, Golden Globe, PEN, Critics' Choice, and Peabody Award-winning author, screenwriter, and producer. He has published four novels and penned the script for the feature film Lies and Alibis. He created, executive produced, and served as showrunner for ABC's My Generation and The Unusuals and was a writer and producer on the hit series Bones. Hawley is currently executive producer, writer, and showrunner on FX's award-winning series, Fargo. (I love Fargo!) You can connect with Noah Hawley on Twitter as well as on Facebook.

If you'd like to read Before the Fall this summer as well, I have TWO copies to giveaway. Enter using the Rafflecopter form below. Open to US and Canada, no PO boxes. Ends June 18/16.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Anthem - Noah Hawley

I really enjoyed Noah Hawley's previous book - Before the Fall. (my review) His new novel is the recently released Anthem. 

I was intrigued by the plot description. From Grand Central Publishing:

"The first big novel of 2022: an epic literary thriller set where America is right now, in which a band of unlikely heroes sets out on a quest to save one innocent life—and might end up saving us all.

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse.  

At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.  

Noah Hawley’s new novel is an adventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners.  Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale.  It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers."

Okay, here's the thing - and it's very hard for me to say this. But, Anthem is a very rare DNF for me. I've picked up and put down the book many times. At page 114 I threw in the towel. 

I want to stress that Hawley is a truly talented writer. His scathing depictions and dismantling of society, politics, religion, business, pharmaceuticals, history, climate and more are unsettling, yet strangely spot on. Hawley is writing about our world, now and in the near future.

Anthem takes place a few years after the Covid pandemic has passed. The generation of teenagers who will be the new leaders in a few years have chosen to kill themselves - in droves. This was pretty hard to read as so many of us are feeling pandemic fatigue. "Now we had to wonder, had that endless lockdown our children endured, had long-term mental health effects - all that computer schooling, the chronic fear of falling behind academically, socially, the endless months of heightened anxiety and uncertainty?

Page 114 details a text exchange between an unknown male and a young teenage girl. And it's ugliness saddened me. And I thought - I just don't want to read anymore. I admit to sneaking ahead to the last few chapters - and I thought yes, I've confirmed my decision to myself. I wasn't up for the journey to that last chapter. But I did find that last chapter was redemptive. 

I do encourage you to check out the five star reviews on Goodreads.

The Silence Between Breaths - Cath Staincliffe

Cath Staincliffe is an award winning British crime novelist and screenwriter. Her latest novel is The Silence Between Breaths. Reading between the cover words, you can see the tagline: Eight Strangers. One Deadly Secret.

Mirroring current newspaper headlines, Staincliffe's novel takes place on a British commuter train. We meet the residents of one car, as well as an employee working that car. The Silence Between Breaths is an ensemble novel with a large number of players - the eight and their extended familial connections. I must admit, I initially made a list to keep straight who was who, but it didn't take me too long to readily recognize then all. Staincliffe had created rich, detailed lives, personalities and individual voices for each character. Not all are likeable, but their lives are compelling.

Of course I wanted to know what the secret was. It's revealed fairly early on in the book and was what I had suspected. But knowing the secret only made me more curious. What is going to happen? And how will the passengers react? What will befall them? And having to come to know the details of their lives only heightened the anticipation of dread.

That event takes place, but Staincliffe takes things further, following the 'after' story as well, which I really appreciated. It gave the story closure of a sort, a final ending instead of leaving the reader to wonder about the aftermath. There is action and tension throughout the story, but the book is definitely character driven. Staincliffe has excelled at her depictions. Fiction, but not that far from the truth.

Fans of Noah Hawley's Before the Fall would enjoy The Silence Between Breaths. Read an excerpt of The Silence Between Breaths.