The Glister: A Novel

by John Burnside

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
366	27	70,104	(3.21)	43
The terrifying new novel by the prize-winning Scottish author The children of Innertown exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their 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 the authorities claim they are simply runaways. The town policeman, Morrison knows otherwise. He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and he believes all the boys have been killed. Though he is seriously compromised, he would still like to find out the killer's identity. The local children also want to know and, in their fear and frustration, they turn on Rivers, a sad fantasist and suspected paedophile living alone at the edge of the wasteland. Trapped and frightened, one of the boys, Leonard, tries to escape, taking refuge in the poisoned ruins of the old plant; there he finds another boy, who might be the missing Liam and might be a figment of his imagination. With his help, Leonard comes to understand the policeman's involvement, and exacts the necessary revenge - before following Liam into the Glister- possibly a disused chemical weapons facility, possibly a passage to the outer world. A terrifying exploration of loss and the violence that pools under the surface of the everyday, Glister is an exquisitely written, darkly imagined novel by one of our greatest contemporary writers.… (more)

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Member:	Tasses
Title:	The Glister: A Novel
Authors:	John Burnside
Info:	Nan A. Talese (no date), Hardcover, 240 pages
Collections:	Your library
Rating:
Tags:	LFL giveaway, READ, Reviewed

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The Glister by John Burnside

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Showing 1-5 of 26 (next | show all)

This is a book where beautiful writing overshadowed a confusing ending. That pulled this one into the like category for me. (

)

reginaplove | Sep 9, 2018 |

I'm stunned by how low the average rating us for this book! I absolutely fell in love with Burnside's way with words and devoured this book in a day. The "abstract" edge to the plot leaves room for great discussion. (

)

PagesandPints | Sep 1, 2016 |

bookshelves: published-2008, one-penny-wonder, hardback, autumn-2013, lit-richer, bullies, boo-scary, plague-disease, tbr-busting-2013
Read from September 18 to October 22, 2013

Perth.

Opening: Where I am now, I can hear the gulls.

Probably one of the most terrifying books I have ever read and no doubt The Moth Man will puzzle me to the end of time but oh, how I would have loved a decent ending - a full star drop right there.

Would recommend to no-one.

3.5* Glister
4* A Summer of Drowning
4* The Devil's Footprints (

)

mimal | Jan 1, 2014 |

Darkly Scottish and full of adolescent angst, adult angst, and murderous angst. Great tone and characterizations. (

)

willmurdoch | Nov 5, 2011 |

The Glister had a great premise: boys are disappearing in a small town that is dominated by an abandoned chemical plant. It seems certain that the plant has poisoned the town, both physically and mentally. The townspeople are deeply distrustful on the land where the plant was situated and of what went on there. Is it somehow responsible for the disappearances? I read the book and I still can’t tell you.

Leonard is a teenage boy living in Innertown, the wrong side of the tracks. Rich folks here live in Outertown (no hidden meaning there, I’m sure). His father is dying, probably from exposure to chemicals when he worked at the plant; lots of the folks in Innertown are coping with the fallout from the mysterious toxins they worked with, poison that seeped into the groundwater, twisted the trees and mutated the animals in the forest around the old plant. Still, Leonard feels most at home in those woods and he spends a lot of time alone there.

Sherriff John Morrison is crumbling under a load of guilt. He’s not responsible for the boy’s disappearances, but he’s responsible for the cover-up that has followed. Instead of calling for back-up and investigating the first body he found in the woods, he called Brian Smith, local millionaire…and murderer? Who can say?

This is one of those books that keeps you intrigued right up until the last moment. The final chapters take a turn for the metaphysical that lost me completely. I’ve heard it described as a treatise on good and evil, that Innertown is Purgatory before these boys go on to a better place, but I’m not sure I buy that. The ending certainly did not live up to the early chapters at least for me; they seem entirely mismatched. I found myself wanting to read either the ending that went with the intriguing mystery, or the more mystical build-up to the final strange chapters.

LisaLynne | Apr 24, 2011 |

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▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Laurent-Bonelli Virgin-Lire (2011)

Prix LIRE & Virgin Megastore (2011)

Prix Virgin Megastore (2011)

Warwick Prize for Writing (Longlist – 2009)

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The Glister

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The Glister

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Epigraph

"Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers?" --Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, The Whale

"Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after he missing children, only found another orphan." --Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, The Whale

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In the beginning, John Morrison is working in his garden.

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▾Book descriptions

The terrifying new novel by the prize-winning Scottish author The children of Innertown exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their 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 the authorities claim they are simply runaways. The town policeman, Morrison knows otherwise. He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and he believes all the boys have been killed. Though he is seriously compromised, he would still like to find out the killer's identity. The local children also want to know and, in their fear and frustration, they turn on Rivers, a sad fantasist and suspected paedophile living alone at the edge of the wasteland. Trapped and frightened, one of the boys, Leonard, tries to escape, taking refuge in the poisoned ruins of the old plant; there he finds another boy, who might be the missing Liam and might be a figment of his imagination. With his help, Leonard comes to understand the policeman's involvement, and exacts the necessary revenge - before following Liam into the Glister- possibly a disused chemical weapons facility, possibly a passage to the outer world. A terrifying exploration of loss and the violence that pools under the surface of the everyday, Glister is an exquisitely written, darkly imagined novel by one of our greatest contemporary writers.

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Book description

The children of Innertown exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their 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 the authorities claim they are simply runaways.

The town policeman, Morrison knows otherwise. He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and he believes all the boys have been killed. Though he is seriously compromised, he would still like to find out the killer's identity.

The local children also want to know and, in their fear and frustration, they turn on Rivers, a sad fantasist and suspected paedophile living alone at the edge of the wasteland. Trapped and frightened, one of the boys, Leonard, tries to escape, taking refuge in the poisoned ruins of the old plant; there he finds another boy, who might be the missing Liam and might be a figment of his imagination. With his help, Leonard comes to understand the policeman's involvement, and exacts the necessary revenge - before following Liam into the Glister: possibly a disused chemical weapons facility, possibly a passage to the outer world.

A terrifying exploration of loss and the violence that pools under the surface of the everyday, Glister is an exquisitely written, darkly imagined novel by one of our greatest contemporary writers.

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