Published by
Harrington Park Press
in 2004
Now Out of Print
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a novel by jim tushinski reviews |
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"Tushinski's debut novel is a HARROWING AND COMPELLING descent into one man's world of interior rage, self-reconstruction, and reconciliation with the world. Tushinski's prose, bold and transformative, demands close reading, and rewards it." Richard Labonte "ASTONISHING...RIVETING...The reader is guided forward by Tushinski's clear-eyed, luminous prose. Amazingly, we participate in Michael's journey toward self-knowledge in a way that feels totally authentic and emotionally true." C. Kevin Smith "INTRIGUING AND FRIGHTENING...an exciting read." Buzz (San Diego/Palm Springs) "TAUT AND GRIPPING...will have the reader literally gasping with shock...A masterful tale well told." Jone Devlin "This ASTONISHING DEBUT NOVEL gripped us with its story of an institutionalized young gay man, and we knew within a matter of pages that we had a new 2004 Violet Quill finalist on our hands." InsightOut Book Club catalog "A captivating new novel..." EXP Magazine "Tushinski's language is eloquent and convincing. The text shimmers with light and color...a compassionate, engaging portrait of a man on a quest for self-understanding." Gene Haworth "A PASSIONATE NOVEL ABOUT THE PASSION OF CREATIVITY....Explores the mutable boundaries between genius and insanity, and between obsession and delusion. This tale of a man who yearns to make his mark through music is by turns wry, spooky, and aching." Jean Thompson, "Using his narrator's memory gaps and obsessions, Tushinski creates his own synaesthetic symphonies and strange new melodies, a music of mania and loss. Van Allen's Ecstasy is A COMPELLING CONTRIBUTION TO THE LITERATURE OF MADNESS AND IDENTITY." Stephen Beachy, "A FASCINATING ENTRÉE into the mind of Michael Van Allen, who has undergone a nervous breakdown during a performance by his famous father of Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 5. Tushinski masterfully achieves a rich portrait of Michael's internal struggle for sanity, as well as powerful characterizations of those around him. Tushinski's sensitive and confident command of language immediately engages the reader...IMMENSELY SATISFYING." Jim Van Buskirk, "DARKLY LUMINOUS....Tushinski's novel evokes one young man's discovery of and longing for the mystic chord into which he would transform his life. Van Allen's Ecstasy risks austerity and an expressive restraint too challenging and complex to be mistaken for plainness." Peter Weltner, "'I remember and remember and remember,' Jim Tushinski writes, 'and the act of remembering becomes a physical sensation, like drinking water to quench a thirst.' In Van Allen's Ecstasy, the act of reading, too, becomes a physical sensation. This is the story of Michael Van Allen, a man unable to create in a family of natural-born creators, a man yearning for the joy of unrestrained creative activity--ecstasy. What Michael doesn't know is that there is a price to pay for ecstasy. We are lost with Michael in a story in a mist, feeling our way through place, time, and people that ought to be familiar, but isn't. This is a story about how we are who we are, even without all the memories and connections we depend upon every day to help us define ourselves. Tushinski has written in a prose that is by turns major-key bold and then minor-key tentative in response to the estranged world that we--the writer, the reader, and Michael Van Allen himself--must make familiar once again." Brian Bouldrey, |