Resurrection Man

Stewart's third book, after his cyberpunk Passion Play and wry fantasy Nobody's Son, begins his series of novels involving our present world with a bit more magic added than is typical for magical realism. The first few pages make clear that this is an alternate reality where JFK was assassinated by RFK was not, thanks to the intervention of a soothsayer. The opening begins with the main character, Dante, doing an autopsy on his own dead body. Unlike the much later novel "John Dies At the End", the presence of the body is unexplained but not surprising to anyone. Everyone in this alternate present have had to become used to weird things happening, especially to an angel -- whatever that means. Even Dante is not sure what he is, nor is show more his sardonic shadow twin Jet, to whom something happened at birth to cause his aunt to scream and turn away from him.

What makes the book work is Stewart's prose and imagery. Dante may be the main character, but he is a bit of a stick. My favorite passages are those where Jet describes various black and white pictures he has taken. Black and white because you see important things when not distracted by the color of reality.

Stewart for the most part refuses to give info dumps. He does well imparting a lot of information along the way, but what the world is like outside Dante's family is never clear. Steward did a better job, with a lot more space, in his next book, The Night Watch, and then learned to do it cleanly and compactly in Mockingbird and Galveston. I would recommend reading all of those first, and then turning to this warmup novel.

Still, highly recommended. show less

This is a hard one to review. On one hand, it is a creepy book about a seemingly happy family. It starts with a dissection. Which is just creepy. And, its hard to follow, frustratingly so. Its not necessarily a bad thing - it makes a reader pay very close attention. It also introduces the three siblings that form the core of the story. Angsty Dante, cool and aloof Jet, and Dumpy sister Sarah.

As the secrets of the family slowly unfold, we find out about this new world (with obligatory Star Wars Reference, for the win!) and how the family changed to accommodate.

At times the story sits at the edge of annoying angst - it never goes cross the boundary of annoying (well, maybe a little). I suspect that this book will drive some readers crazy show more due to the "woe is me" attitude that seems to plague this book. But, the writing is excellent, the characters, intriguing, and the story, an excellent addition to genre of Gothic storytelling (Creepy house included). show less

This was hard for an arachnophobe to read. I put it down and picked it back up several times, but I'm glad I persevered. As always, Stewart does a matchless job of following intricate and often tortured relationships on the path of life and death.

A beautifully written book. It's both lyrical and melencoly. I think it resonated much more with me today (at 65) than it would have 20 or 30 years ago.

Since WWII magic has slowly seeped into the world, generating Minotaurs of people fears and beliefs and creating Angels who channel magic.
Dante is a repressed Angel, who is brittle with the fear of what he might become, and consequently lacking in forward drive. His brother Jet is marked by his fathers gambling away the soul of his firstborn son, always questing for his own secret past, longing to belong, always feeling left on the outside.
Jets find of Dantes corpse in his old bedroom starts of a strange adventure where Dante performs an autopsy on his own corpse, channels ghosts, and resurrects the dead. All in the belief that he is about to die, and in order to resolve jets problems with his unknown origin.

Resurrection Man show more foreshadows themes Stewart explores further in Galveston, and it is interesting to see how society deals with a more insidious magic, a magic that slowly corrupts a causality that is taken for granted, and the concepts that are developed to address it.

It is obvious thas is an earlier work than the amazing Galveston, it appear less cohesive and complete. The characters are welldrawn and threedimensional, the world is well conceived and described. show less

A world awash in a rising tide of magic. Hard not to like. But I wish he'd spent more time with the evil twin, the character I really liked. Damien was a bit of a wash-out. I really liked the world-portrayal, the strangeness of it all, but there wasn't enough of it to carry the book on its own.

I've read this book more than a couple of times over the years.A nixe mixture of occult, mystery and emotional drama.