Archangel

by Paul Watkins Narrated by George Guidall

Overview

Paul Watkins is receiving national acclaim for his razor-sharp prose. He is often compared to legendary writers like Ernest Hemingway and Jack London. Archangel takes the listener deep into the woods of Maine, where two determined men clash over acres of valuable trees. Noah Mackenzie, an ambitious businessman, is racing against the clock to log thousands of acres of ancient forest before new legislation can stop him. Reclusive environmentalist Adam Gabriel is willing to give his life to protect those majestic pines. As profits and preservation collide, the conflict brews a devastating combination of natural catastrophe and social violence. Paul Watkins' riveting novel turns a towering northern landscape into an ideological battlefield that is compelling and absolutely unforgettable. Watkins' powerful work has made him one of the best-reviewed new writers on the current American literary scene.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

Watkins, a gifted young novelist who stands head and shoulders above his more popular but less capable peers (e.g., Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz, Douglas Coupland), most recently raised readers' eyebrows with his fascinating memoir, Stand Before Your God (LJ 11/15/93). In this return to fiction, the thinly veiled title character, Adam Gabriel, returns to his hometown in Maine to battle Jonah Mackenzie, a ruthless logging baron who is destroying the wilderness. Gabriel proves as single-minded as Mackenzie, however, and engages in dangerous "tree-spiking" (i.e., driving long nails into trees in order to discourage chainsaw-bearing loggers). When the dust clears, four men are dead. Unfortunately, the devices that worked so well in Watkins's other novels-idealistic, romantic characters; exotic settings; tight, affecting prose-fall flat here. Female characters in particular, most notably an unstable local woman known as "Mary the Clock," are poorly sketched. Archangel is not up to the author's usual standards, and unless Watkins has a following at your library you can pass on this one.-Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169505986
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/11/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

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