Darling Jim

En saga för vuxna, en annorlunda handling, och Christian Mörk lyckas förtrolla oss med sitt språk.
Darling Jim har blivit recenserad av väldigt många och recensionerna är varierande, antagligen älskar man den eller hatar . Jag är ingen kräsen läsare , för mig är viktigast att boken ska fånga mig och inte ha ett språk som är irriterande. Darling Jim fastnade jag från sida 1 och sedan sträck läste jag den så bra är den och då förtjänar boken 4 i betyg fast den inte är vinnare av Pulitzerpriset :

“I don’t want your pity and I’m no whinger.”

Murder. Humor. Love. Fairy tales. A hot goth girl on ham radio and everybody with a secret to keep. This novel worked on me like haunted ivy. It starts out with a taste of darkness, then just blooms beauty and color all around you. Before you even realize it you’re covered and ensconced inside the now darkness of the ivy. By then you don’t care- the characters are fully realized, flawed and wonderful. This is a mystery where you know how it ends- or it lets you think you do- but there’s a lot to uncover. This book was a real surprise for me, and based on the cover art and the title I hadn’t a freakin’ CLUE about what this book had in store for me. I highly recommend this to show more those who love dark comedies, Joe Meno, murder mysteries, shadowy sex or just great literature. It’s weird, wonderful, scary, funny, sexy and just staggeringly strange. I wish I was a better writer to convey that YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK! You’ll only regret it if you hate phenomenal things. show less

Spoilerific.

Not everyone is a fan of the technique used in this novel, but I am. I don't know the proper terminology for it, but it's when the ultimate outcome (or at least a major outcome) is known at the outset and the story deals with how this outcome came to pass and what (if any) repercussions are still to come. I don't mind knowing a big development up front if the author is adept at making me really want to know why this event happened. This has to be done with care and skill. Moerk has both and introduces Niall, a character who, like us, needs to find out what happened to the Walsh sisters. We know only what he knows and go along with him as he discovers more. Overall it's very well done. The fixation with wolves in the novel show more was a bit heavy handed; from Niall's inability to draw them to Jim's never-ending tale, it was just a bit too much. Like, yeah, we get it; he's a wolf like in fairy tales. The story Jim told went on too long sometimes, too, taking me out of the story and diminishing the tension too much.

Niall is sort of a timid loser of a man, trapped in a dead-end job fantasizing about becoming a comic-book illustrator. He spends a lot of his time lost in a dream-like state, drawing scene after scene. Trouble is, he's not that good and he has no story to tell. When he discovers a diary in the dead letter office late at night, he's captivated by it at once. Even before he reads it, he knows it will be earth shattering because it's the diary of Fiona Walsh, one of the women killed recently in what appears to be a bizarre family feud. Diaries and letters are another of my favorite techniques and Moerk does a reasonable job with presenting us with two diaries.

After Niall is sacked he takes off in search of answers eventually ending up in the town where it all started. Three sisters missing, two found dead along with their aunt whose head was bashed in. The bodies of the remaining sisters, Fiona and Roisin, show signs of slow poisoning, starvation and physical cruelty. It's clear that Aunt Moira had been keeping them prisoner for some time. But why? The locals are no help and are downright jerks most of the time. I don't know if rural Irish are this ignorant, arrogant, narrow and stupid or if Moerk has an axe to grind, but jeez the lot of them were really just assholes. Bigoted and narrow-minded, determined to rewrite history to make themselves look good and decent, with neighbors like that I'd rather be a hermit. Niall was his own worst enemy at times, but these people were impossible, judgmental assholes. If the Irish legal system is anything like it's portrayed in this book, I cringe just thinking about it.

Anyway, aside from the Irish people character assassination, the book was well done. Paced to set tension and release it in good proportion. Just when one thing gets discovered or put into place another springs up. Some of it was predictable though if you read enough of this genre. Aoife's pregnancy for example was really obvious. Ditto for Jim having a brother. Neither came as a surprise and that was a tiny bit of a let-down. After a reasonably original beginning I hoped for something a bit more off track. Although I will say that Jim's brother was even less attractive than Jim himself. A couple of hideous sociopaths the pair of them. And what gives with the armed response? And people say Americans are militia crazy. Again…are the rural Irish really like this or is it just exaggeration? It seemed really weird.

The sisters were well-drawn and quirky, but individually quirky, they aren't the same. I understand a bit how two came to be entranced by Jim having known a sociopath or two in my lifetime. I also know what it's like to be attracted to the dark stranger in the crowd. And having a couple of motorcycles myself, I know they are a irresistible lure to many people. The whole town being seduced is another story and it was sort of unreal that the sisters' friends and neighbors could turn on them so quickly. Again, it made me wonder if Moerk had an axe to grind here.

The ending…well, it was a bit tame in light of what came before. Niall meekly (and chivalrously, don't forget the chivalry) allows Aoife to slink back to her hidden life. He also lets Ned go back to his psychotic vigil on his property, waiting for those whom he can torment. All so he can crawl back to his former boss, beg for his job back and begin writing and illustrating this story, complete with castles and correctly rendered wolves (which he magically can draw now). I'm sorry, but Jim's demise wasn't enough for me here with the second (and somewhat more loathsome) villain on the loose. No, Ned's cryptic messages on Roisin's wireless don't vindicate him. And Aoife's anonymity is baffling. For such "modern" women, all three sisters seem to have a wide subservient streak that just seemed weird.

But all in all it was an enjoyable read that was effective in drawing me along and keeping me interested. show less

First off, let me say I listened to the audio book, and the excellent narration was part of the pleasure of this book for me. I was also pulled in by the story, a mystery/horror hybrid built around a charismatic and murderous shanachie (Irish storyteller). The story opens with the discovery of the murder of two sisters by their demented aunt. Postman and budding cartoonist Niall finds the diaries of the dead sisters and becomes obsessed with their stories of the villainous shanachie, Jim Quick.

I am seldom interested in folklore and fairy tales but Jim Quick's central tale of a wolf man was intriguing, and the whole story was dark and sometimes erotic in a twisted way. There is a big, big, suspension of disbelief needed in the matter of show more the diaries - these women were great writers considering that they were being starved and poisoned by a crazy lady. But that's often how diaries go in novels. show less

In this story within a story, postman Niall finds the diary of a young woman at the center of a murder mystery, and begins to reconstruct the torrid tale behind the murder house and a series of missing women in the west of Ireland. As we learn more about the three Walsh sisters, their Aunt Moira, and the diabolical itinerant storyteller Darling Jim, a brooding sense of foreboding develops that sets the tone for the entire novel.

Between the story within a story within a story format, the mystical elements, and the country appropriate language, I feared this novel might crumble beneath the weight, but instead it transported me to a place of suspended disbelief where everything made its own strange sort of sense. I was most impressed that show more the author managed to draw out the anxiety to a fever pitch and then maintain that level of intensity until the very last pages of the novel.

The writing is crisp, the language spot-on, and the story itself a truly unusual addition to my library. I started reading and simply couldn't put this book down, no matter how much I wanted to at times as the story grew darker and darker. I highly recommend this magnificent book and look forward reading more by this talented writer. show less

I've read the previous reviews and agree with all of them. Dark. Possibly hard to believe. Unlikeable characters. All valid. I can only say that I listened to this as an audiobook. The voices enhanced the spellbinding quality of a professional roving storyteller like Jim. It was a horrible story. I could not stop listening. I had to find out what happened. Perhaps the fact that the characters weren't very likeable made it easier in the end. There are horrible Jims in the world who fascinate, entrance, enslave, abuse. This is how they do it. A warning if you will. I highly recommend the audio version.

Darling Jim is, as the cover says, a story of "three sisters, three tales, and a secret, dark as night." Two sisters, Fiona and Roisin Walsh, and their Aunt Moira are found dead in the aunt's home, while another sister has simply vanished. A short time later Niall, a wayward postal worker, discovers Fiona's diary in the dead letter bin. He is immediately entranced by her story and sets out in search of the truth behind the brutal deaths.

Reading Fiona's diary reveals that the sisters' lives were forever changed by the appearance of Jim, an itinerant storyteller, who they rapidly realized harbored darks secrets beneath his charming facade. Niall finds himself risking his own life in order to unravel the mystery surrounding the sisters and show more "Darling Jim." As he follows where the story leads, learning the fate of the third sister, Aiofe, becomes the ultimate prize.

I first started reading Darling Jim a year or more ago and couldn't get beyond the prologue where the horrible state in which the bodies are found is described. I'm glad I finally made a second attempt. The book flawlessly flows between the narrative of Niall's journey and the diaries of Fiona and Roisin. All three have distinct voices which give their characters personality and depth.

The resolution is all you could hope for in this tragic story. When Niall's journey finally came to an end, all I could say was "wow." Darling Jim haunted my dreams when I set it down at night, and I've been thinking about the story ever since finishing it last night. If you haven't read Darling Jim, I highly recommend you run out and find it now. Christian Moerk, whose previous works are in Danish, is a gifted storyteller, and I'm glad he's brought his gift to America. show less