The Long Rain

by Peter Gadol Narrated by Peter Francis James

Overview

The Long Rain is atypical of the usual thriller. Peter Gadol sneaks up on his readers with an easy conversational style, lures them into a comfortable bucolic setting, and then knocks them off balance with one fell swoop. After three years of struggling to restore his father's vineyard, lawyer Jason Dark has managed to get his life on track and to win back his estranged wife and son. Then, in one irrevocable moment on a dark, storm-swept mountain road, he must make a terrible choice-a choice that forces him into a succession of lies that he hopes will protect his family. Will he survive the consequences of his momentous decision? Readers will wince at the realization that Peter Gadol's hero could be anyone. A twist of fate, an impossible choice-the moral dilemmas that he presents are as complex as any in real life. Talented narrator Peter Francis James deftly completes the illusion that Jason is one of us, the one with whom no reader would want to trade places.

Editorial Reviews

Sun-Sentinel Ft. Lauderdale

"A novel of riveting suspense."

Kirkus Reviews

A heartfelt and engrossing story of moral failure and a quest for redemption from the versatile young author of Closer to the Sun (1996), etc.

Gadol's fourth novel takes place in California's wine-growing country, where Jason Dark, a lawyer, is impelled by his transgressions as husband and father to remake himself by restoring his late father's moribund vineyard. He succeeds, and gets his family and life back; all runs smoothly until Jason's habit of driving at high speeds alone at night on nearby mountain roads exacts its toll: He hits and kills a teenaged boy and, unable to bear the thought of once again losing everything he loves, conceals his crime. A drifter and confessed car thief, Troy Frantz, is apprehended and, persuaded he may well have been the hit-and-run driver, confesses. Jason's agony of conscience forces him to act, pro bono, as Frantz's attorney. He tells himself he can live with his lie, performing this penance—until his growing closeness to the accused triggers an unexpected and deeply ironic sequence of climactic actions and choices. Melodrama and coincidence do rear their heads rather too frequently, but there's so much going on in this strongly imagined novel that we easily forgive its excesses. Gadol fleshes out its main narrative with authoritatively detailed descriptions of grape-growing and wine-making, and he efficiently juxtaposes Jason's internalized struggles with a harrowing account of his pained relations with his wife Julia, son Tim, and the luckless Troy Frantz. What's fascinating—and impressive—is the degree to which Gadol forces our identification with its self- deceiving and deceitful protagonist: We're made to understand how he could have acted as he did, and to believe we ourselves might well have done the same.

Gadol is especially convincing on the mixtures of nobility and meanness that are in us all. If his plot isn't altogether credible, its comprehension of human nature surely is—and in plenty.

From the Publisher

"Surprisingly convincing.... The Long Rain is an instantly compelling and believable tale." —Detroit Free Press

"The Long Rain, with swift finesse, collapses several thriller genres into one.... Surprise upon satisfying surprise." —Baltimore Sun

"Delivers plenty of action...Gadol is a gifted writer." —San Francisco Chronicle

"Lyrical.... The Long Rain is a satisying book and one that transports readers to a place they might really go." —Portland Oregonian

"Gadol keeps the solutions to hero's moral dilemmas surprisingly complex, while the backdrop of California's wine country keeps the tale disarmingly idyllic."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

APR/MAY 00 - AudioFile

One fiercely rainy night, driving up a mountain road, Jason Dark meets tragedy. It is a condition he is incapable of facing. A man of many failures, he begins to regenerate life and family through his vineyard. Then, he meets Troy, a dark-visaged man with failings not unlike his own. Together, they dream of redemption. A stylistic contrivance used by Gadol (“he said,” “she said”) acquires the resonance of a refrain as the pilgrimages of Jason and those touched by him develop. Both allegory and the reality of an all-too-possible situation are projected seamlessly in James’s voicing. Superb in pacing, intense without overstatement, this remarkable work is delivered faultlessly. S.B.S. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170934621
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	11/26/2007
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

A Season of Rain

After a decade of increasingly halfhearted participation in his marriage and in his law career, Jason Dark dispassionately watches them both collapse within the same week. Uncertain how or where to begin again, he sets out for his late father's estate in the California wine country with the vague idea of sprucing it up and putting it on the market. There he finds a new purpose and a new reason for living. Dark is transformed by the solitude, invigorated by the physical labor of pruning vines, and seduced by the promise of the vineyard's new growth.

Flush with the surprising success of his first harvest, Dark decides to stay on. He discovers that the valley needs a lawyer and sets up a sort of "legal general store" in a rented storefront office -- a "public defender-good works deal" dealing mainly in drawing up wills and real-estate contracts and settling water disputes. In comparison with the numbing tax and bankruptcy cases he once handled, protecting the rights of the vintners in the valley seems at last a worthy sort of work.

He learns to cook, learns to kick back, and except for the occasional "need for a speed" along deserted night roads in the nearby mountains -- a leftover from his anxiety-ridden past -- he remakes himself. Whole and successful, he is even able to lure his ex-wife and son to the valley and gradually convince them he is worthy of their trust.

Surprising even himself, Jason has accomplished his life's dream, becoming "a father and a lover and a lawyer and a farmer and a hero to some." And yet at times he still feels the compulsion to disappear, to drive away from it all. Then one evening in the autumn of his fifth year in the valley, everything changes. A rainstorm whips up during one of his mountain drives, making the moonless roads treacherous. Just as he has decided to head home he sees a figure in his headlights, feels the impact, and careens to a stop. Dazed, sickened, stricken with fear from the realization that he could lose everything he has worked so hard to rebuild, he drives away.

At first it seems that the accident will remain unsolved, but then a drifter is arrested and charged with the crime. Jason Dark is faced with yet another moral decision -- to turn away or to defend a man only he can prove is innocent.

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