Shade

August 30, 2004
Elegantly sober narration from beyond the grave ("George killed me with his gardening shears.... He held the shears to my neck in the glasshouse, and with quite spectacular clumsiness opened a moonlike gash on my throat") distinguishes this ghost story from novelist and Oscar-winning filmmaker (The Crying Game
) Jordan. His gloomy tale, spanning the first half of the 20th century, begins where the story ends: Nina Hardy is murdered by her childhood friend, George, now the gardener on the estate where she spent her youth. The rest of the book looks backward, as Nina reflects on her life and the lives of her half-brother Gregory, George and George's sister, Janie. The familiar, theatrical plot—with its traumas of unrequited love across class lines, incestuous longings, war—is secondary to Nina's voice: "I am everywhere being nowhere, the narrative sublime...." Her ghostly omniscience leads to echoing motifs, including drowned women, pendulums, dolls and childhood accidents, in "a shifting, uncertain world, where each question could be referred to an entity that wasn't there," even as the reasons behind the murder become more unsettlingly clear. Nina's ghost sometimes takes a backseat to stretches of exposition from less engaging characters, and the novel as a whole can feel dreamily disjointed. Such lapses are forgiven, though, in this otherwise daring and well-crafted whole. Agent, Kim Witherspoon. BOMC and Doubleday Book Club selection; 5-city author tour.

September 15, 2004
This fourth novel by award-winning writer and film director Jordan is as cryptic as his Oscar-winning The Crying Game. Set in Ireland, it begins with a brutal murder and continues with the story of four characters, alternating between past and present and including the voice of the murder victim until the story culminates in a gasp-out-loud ending, for which Jordan is known. The two male protagonists, Gregory and George, give vivid descriptions of World War I battles, from which George emerges physically and emotionally scarred. Nina, the "shade," tells of her career as an actress, while Janie is left behind in Ireland to hold together the pieces of their joint past. Jordan's prose is dramatic, poetic, and surprising by turns. Recommended for large public libraries. Karen Traynor, Sullivan Free Lib., Chittenango, NY

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2004
Jordan's latest novel is a lyrical experiment in point of view. It begins with actress Nina Hardy's death--her head hacked off with garden shears, her body lowered into a septic tank. But Nina remains, narrating as a ghost. She is everywhere and nowhere, and to her, the past is as immediate as the present. During her privileged childhood, she forms a fast foursome with George and Janie, poor kids from across the river Boyne, and Gregory, her late-discovered half brother. (The children shiver at a ghostly presence they call "Hester"--is it Nina, looking back?) They're soon separated by class and ability, by war, by brutally punished mistakes. In the present, Gregory returns to hold a funeral and wake the body that was never found. It's not surprising that Jordan, writer and director of " The Crying Game" and " Michael Collins" , would have a lot to say about identity and sexuality, acting and observing, and politics. But as this quiet novel steps surely toward its powerful conclusion, it's also a testament to the simple but profound power of storytelling. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)