Hold the Dark: A Novel

by William Giraldi

Overview

Now a Netflix original film starring Alexander Skarsgård, Riley Keough, and Jeffrey Wright

At the edge of civilization, nature and evil collide in what “stands out as one of the decade’s best books of its kind” (Alan Cheuse, Boston Globe).

Written with “force and precision and grace” (John Wilwol, New York Times Book Review) Hold the Dark is a “taut and unforgettable journey into the heart of darkness” (Dennis Lehane). At the start of another pitiless winter, wolves have taken three children from the remote Alaskan village of Keelut, including the six-year-old son of Medora and Vernon Slone. Wolf expert Russell Core is called in to investigate these killings and discovers an unholy truth harbored by Medora before she disappears. When her husband returns home to discover his boy dead and his wife missing, he begins a maniacal pursuit that cuts a bloody swath across the frozen landscape. With the help of a local police detective, Core attempts to find Medora before her husband does, setting in motion a deadly chain of events in this “chilling, mysterious, and completely engaging novel” (Tim O’Brien) that marks the arrival of a major American writer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631490422
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	08/10/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	455,622
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

William Giraldi is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Busy Monsters and Hold the Dark; the memoir The Hero’s Body; and a collection of criticism, American Audacity. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is master lecturer in the Writing Program at Boston University.

Editorial Reviews

"Maybe it all began with Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock in 1938, but there is a variety of modern thriller, created these days by Robert Stone and Denis Johnson at their best, that delivers narrative thrust and beautifully composed sentences by the pageful even as it peels away the thin membrane that separates entertainment from art, and nature from civilization. Here’s Boston writer William Giraldi adding to the slender ranks of such masterly fiction… [Hold the Dark] certainly stands out as one of the decade’s best books of its kind, and one that deserves, because of its stylish flaunting of some of our darkest fears, a future readership."

Boston Globe - Alan Cheuse

"A taut, muscular and often unforgettable journey into the heart of darkness. Epic, relentless, and beautifully realized."

Dennis Lehane

[F]ierce, extraordinary.... An unnerving and intimate portrayal of nature gone awry. . . . Spectacularly violent and exquisitely written.--John Wilwol "New York Times Book Review"

Giraldi's back-country Alaska is a savagely amoral place where the constant struggle for survival brings out the most elemental aspects of humanity. This work travels deep into the most ancient and primitive realms of being, offering an unflinching--and more than a little frightening--exploration of the domains of the unconscious that are more commonly the province of myth and fairy tale.-- "Library Journal, Starred review"

Maybe it all began with Graham Greene's Brighton Rock in 1938, but there is a variety of modern thriller, created these days by Robert Stone and Denis Johnson at their best, that delivers narrative thrust and beautifully composed sentences by the pageful even as it peels away the thin membrane that separates entertainment from art, and nature from civilization. Here's Boston writer William Giraldi adding to the slender ranks of such masterly fiction... [Hold the Dark] certainly stands out as one of the decade's best books of its kind, and one that deserves, because of its stylish flaunting of some of our darkest fears, a future readership.--Alan Cheuse "Boston Globe"

A chilling, mysterious, and completely engaging novel that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. The cold and unforgiving Alaskan wild becomes much more than a backdrop for this spellbinding story. It becomes a character--a living creature with its own hungers, its own secrets, its own icy motives, its own implacable will. I was entranced.--Tim O'Brien

A taut, muscular and often unforgettable journey into the heart of darkness. Epic, relentless, and beautifully realized.--Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River

From the Publisher

…Giraldi's fierce, extraordinary new novel…is an unnerving and intimate portrayal of nature gone awry. It forces us to confront a menacing otherness that lies beyond the typical order of things. It's…spectacularly violent and exquisitely written. If dust jackets were more than paper and ink, this one would bear blood and frost.

The New York Times Book Review - John Wilwol

07/07/2014
Giraldi makes a dark departure from his rollicking debut, Busy Monsters, with this tale of vengeance, which tracks an aggrieved man through the back country of Alaska. The novel starts out slow—and strange. Children are disappearing from the village of Keelut; locals think wolves are to blame. But when wolf expert Russell Core shows up to investigate, he makes a discovery: the body of the latest victim, Bailey Slone, strangled, and the boy’s mother, Medora, missing from the scene. Vernon, Bailey’s father, returns to town from military service overseas and goes on a maniacal rampage, brutally stabbing or shooting every cop and townsperson he encounters during his search for Medora. His boyhood friend Cheeon, a grizzled hunter even more dangerous than Vernon, joins him for part of the spree. Unfortunately, when the reason for Bailey’s murder is finally disclosed, the big reveal feels more like a delayed gimmick than a genuine surprise. Still, if Giraldi set out to write an eerie portrait of depraved behavior set in the boonies, he certainly hit his target. Agent: David Patterson, Foundry Media. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"In this eerie novel, set in a remote, icy village in Alaska, a haunted former nature writer named Russell Core is summoned to hunt a wolf that has apparently snatched a six-year-old, and retrieve the boy’s bones. Core begins his task only to discover the boy’s body frozen in a root cellar. The boy’s father returns from fighting in an unspecified war and embarks on a bloody campaign of vengeance. GIRALD’S UNRELENTING, PERFECTLY PACED PROSE WHIPS THE BOOK ALONG TO AN UNNERVING CONCLUSION. By the end, we feel, as Core does “that man belongs neither in civilization nor nature—because we are aberrations between two states of being."

The New Yorker

"There's an oddness and otherness to this place, and Giraldi speaks its taut, original language. To appreciate its power fully, Hold the Dark should be read closely—not so much for clues to the mystery, but rather for an appreciation of how language bridges worlds."

Chicago Tribune - Elizabeth Taylor

"There’s more than mere craftsmanship on display; it’s skill wed with that sense of obligation to readers, a commitment to using language to help them think differently and more deeply about what they see on the page. Hold the Dark seems more in keeping with the work of [Cormac] McCarthy… and maybe in a similar line to that of Robert Stone. Regardless, it’s one of the best novels I’ve read this year."

Dominic Preziosi

"Hold the Dark is a mystery novel with all the right ingredients: tough characters, beautifully dangerous landscapes, revenge, a detective on the chase, a husband going after his wife, and enough bullet casings to rattle in the mind long after the story is finished."

Washington Review of Books

"Hold the Dark is a powerful meditation on nature, violence and responsibility with the concentration of a fable or fever dream—a book hard to get out of your mind long after you've put it down."

Thomas McGuane

"Utterly brilliant… Hold the Dark is that rarest of literary beasts: a novel whose sentences gleam like gemstones but whose pages carry you along like a bullet train…"

Los Angeles Review of Books - Michael Lokesson

"Hold the Dark is a chilling, mysterious, and completely engaging novel that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. The cold and unforgiving Alaskan wild becomes much more than a backdrop for this spellbinding story. It becomes a character—a living creature with its own hungers, its own secrets, its own icy motives, its own implacable will. I was entranced."

Tim O'Brien

"Snow, ice, wolves, murder, and dark love are encountered in Hold the Dark, William Giraldi's hard, unflinching, and powerful novel. This story and the telling of it have the clout and rigor of a Norse Saga."

Daniel Woodrell

"[F]ierce, extraordinary…. Hold the Dark is an unnerving and intimate portrayal of nature gone awry. It’s all but bereft of levity, spectacularly violent and exquisitely written."

John Wilwol

Richard Ferrone’s gravelly voice suits this story of human and animal violence. A darkly atmospheric thriller, it takes place in the mythic Alaskan village of Keelut during the darkest days of the year. Wolves have taken village children. At the request of a bereaved mother, aging and disillusioned nature writer Russell Core comes to help. Ferrone’s narration is easy to follow and well paced. He does a good job with the dialogue among the tough guys who make up the bulk of the characters. This is not just a story about wolves or Alaska. It’s about the human condition. F.C. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2014 - AudioFile

2014-07-01
A wolf expert travels to a peculiarAlaskan village to investigate a series of child murders.There's a bit of bait and switch going on in this murky, brittle novel. Theopening chapters lead you to believe this will be a wilderness-survival storycentered on Russell Core, an elderly expert on wolves whose field research onceled him to kill one of the great beasts. Carrying his grudging respect for theanimals, Core travels to the hamlet of Keelut at the behest of Medora Slone,whose 6-year-old son, Bailey, is the third local child to have been taken inthe night. After some impenetrable warnings from a local crone ("You would barthe door against the wolf, why not more against beasts with the souls of damnedmen, against men who would damn themselves to beasts"), Core investigates thelocal pack to find no evidence the boy was killed by wolves. Back at Medora'shouse, he finds that she's fled and quickly discovers Bailey's body buried inthe basement. The bulk of the book concerns Bailey's father, Vernon, a vet whoreturns home from an unidentified war and embarks on a killing spree withindistinct motives, with Medora seemingly marked as the final target. Core,meanwhile, is laid up with the flu for two weeks in a local hotel beforeconveniently being resurrected to serve as witness to the novel'sdenouement. Ultimately, the First Blood-like vigilante violence isunearned and confusing, while Core's participation seems the act of a literarywriter trying to bring emotional substance where little exists. Giraldi (BusyMonsters, 2012) is borrowing, less successfully, from the same well asCormac McCarthy and Daniel Woodrell, but the novel's affectation of style can'tsupport what is ultimately a gloomy and unsatisfying tale. A novel like this one that aspiresto greater meaning needs more than an assembly of hard men and noir idioms tomake it work.

Kirkus Reviews