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    The Land of Laughs: A Novel
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    The Land of Laughs: A Novel
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    The Land of Laughs: A Novel
    Ebook313 pages5 hours

    The Land of Laughs: A Novel

    By Jonathan Carroll

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Have you ever loved a magical book above all others? Have you ever wished the magic were real? Welcome to The Land of Laughs. A novel about how terrifying that would be.

    Schoolteacher Thomas Abbey, unsure son of a film star, doesn't know who he is or what he wants--in life, in love, or in his relationship with the strange and intense Saxony Gardner. What he knows is that in his whole life nothing has touched him so deeply as the novels of Marshall France, a reclusive author of fabulous children's tales who died at forty-four.

    Now Thomas and Saxony have come to France's hometown, the dreamy Midwestern town of Galen, Missouri, to write France's biography. Warned in advance that France's family may oppose them, they're surprised to find France's daughter warmly welcoming instead. But slowly they begin to see that something fantastic and horrible is happening. The magic of Marshall France has extended far beyond the printed page...leaving them with a terrifying task to undertake.



    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2010
    ISBN9780312700898
    Unavailable
    The Land of Laughs: A Novel
    Author

    Jonathan Carroll

    Jonathan Carroll (b. 1949) is an award-winning American author of modern fantasy and slipstream novels. His debut book, The Land of Laughs (1980), tells the story of a children’s author whose imagination has left the printed page and begun to influence reality. The book introduced several hallmarks of Carroll’s writing, including talking animals and worlds that straddle the thin line between reality and the surreal, a technique that has seen him compared to South American magical realists. Outside the Dog Museum (1991) was named the best novel of the year by the British Fantasy Society, and has proven to be one of Carroll’s most popular works. Since then he has written the Crane’s View trilogy, Glass Soup (2005) and, most recently, The Ghost in Love (2008). His short stories have been collected in The Panic Hand (1995) and The Woman Who Married a Cloud (2012). He lives and writes in Vienna. 

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    Reviews for The Land of Laughs

    4/5

    23 ratings20 reviews

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    • 1/5
      When I start dreading reading a book, it's time to give up on it. Half way through and it was still wandering. And I don't like the main character. He's a jerk.
    • 2/5
      I'm not even sure where to begin with my review of The Land of Laughs. From the very beginning, I was unsure of where the story was headed and not in a "wow this is going to be a really interesting journey"kind of way. The introduction of the main characters threw me off as they weren't necessarily relatable or even likable. If you're like me it's very difficult to really get into a story if you feel completely separate from the characters who are your eyes and ears in the narrative. However, it started picking up speed around 100 pages in when I figured out where the story was headed. The author has a flair for description and he knows how to get you on the edge of your seat. Of course, figuring out the author's plan meant that I knew what the ending would be less than halfway through. :-/ Conclusion: It wasn't the worst thing I've ever read but it was also far from the best.
    • 5/5
      Thomas Abbey (son of the famous actor Stephen Abbey) and his “colleague” Saxony visit the town of Galen, Missouri, to get information for a biography of their late but beloved children’s book author, Marshall Frank. The information about Frank that Thomas gets from publisher David Louis is much different in a bizarre sort of way from the information gleaned from Saxony’s previous research and from what both learn from visiting the author’s surviving daughter Anna. Carroll’s style of writing never ceases to amaze me. This book is intelligent, subtle, and yet easy to read. The author’s sardonic sense of humor makes reading this tale so much fun. I love the sense of intrigue, of not knowing what surprise the next page will bring, since Carroll’s writing often involves surreal situations. Keenly perceptive of how people react to one another, the author displays a good command of general psychology. So many of the author’s thoughts are noteworthy that it’s a must to savor this book slowly. Since I love to read, and this book is about an author and books, my enjoyment of the subject matter was even more enhanced. This one’s a keeper.SPOILER--> The book becomes weird when the bull terrier Nails talks to Thomas one night and says “The fur. It is. Breathe through the fur.” It turns out that the dogs were all once people and that all of the dogs and people in the town of Galen’s lives were scripted by what Marshall wrote. This starts fading after Marshall dies, but the initial fading of fate reverses when Thomas Abbey begins writing Marshall’s biography. How ingenious! How weird!
    • 1/5
      Comedians don't tell jokes about flying on airplanes because those jokes are inherently funnier than any others. They tell those jokes because they spend a great deal of their time in transit.

      When authors write stories about authors who are struggling to write, I find it just as tiring as yet another joke about airline food (or the lack thereof, amirite?) Ugh.

      This book's plot was slow, and focused on an English Teacher's attempt to write a biography of his favorite author. If you're an author, and have struggled to write something you cared about a great deal, then you might enjoy this story.

      I didn't.

      I had already passed the 2/3 point in this book when the plot finally began to pick up. Even then the plot moved forward in fits and starts. The climax of the book was actually exciting, but the payoff was too small to justify the slog that preceded it.

      It didn't help that I didn't sympathize with the characters. The protagonist is a self-centered jerk with no real redeeming qualities (other than a love of books). I believe many of the supporting cast are actually deliberately two-dimensional, but that doesn't make them any less irritating to read about.
    • 5/5
      Interesting book, just as good as Wooden Sea. It reads like the horror version of Big Fish (if the movie were renovelized).
    • 4/5
      This book is delightfully Hitchcockian. It starts as just a normal story of a bored man deciding to write an autobiography of his favorite author. Some of the facts about the author don't quite add up, and when he goes to Galen, Missouri, the author's home town, the town and its inhabitants seem creepily normal... and then things gradually get very strange. Nothing is revealed until very late in the book, so even though the events of the book are very mundane, the suspense makes this a page-turner.
    • 4/5
      A lot of what Carroll does here have become cliches of Borges- and Kafka-influenced novels, but he was writing in the late 70s, well before magical realism became fashionable. There's more here than appears on the surface--one wished there were more on the surface actually. Not more narrative, but illustrations, maybe? Definitely not a disappointment even with the buildup Carroll's cult gives it. But definitely not a novel to which I have a definitive reaction right away. Read it.
    • 5/5
      already one of my favorite books, the reread after so many years just reminded me of why I like this book above so many others
    • 3/5
      somewhere between urban fantasy and twilight zone is Jonathan Carroll's The Land of Laughs. fanboy delight...
    • 4/5
      Jonathan Carroll's intriguing first novel manages to be both magical and prosaic at the same time, blending increasingly dark fantasy with the mundane details of his protagonists' lives. I particularly like how he refused to sentimentalise his characters, ever, and how the mystery was carefully unfolded. The narrative may have lost a little steam in its final third, but the ending was cruel and satisfying at the same time, if a little abrupt, and I think this is probably one of the best books about the power of stories and authors that I've read. Voice of our Shadow, another Carroll, is sitting in my 'To Read Very Soon' pile, and I'm looking forward to it!
    • 4/5
      "The Land of Laughs was lit by eyes that saw the lights that no one's seen."Schoolteacher Thomas Abbey goes to the small town of Galen Missouri with his girlfriend Saxony, hoping to persuade the daughter of a famous children's author to let him write an authorised biography of her father. Another fantasy story in which nothing fantastical happens until the half-way point, with another socially inadequate male protagonist who does not know how to relate to women at all. I am sensing a common theme to Jonathan Carroll's novels now that I have read three of them, but they do have original and very interesting plots so I'll carry on reading them.
    • 4/5
      Thomas Abbey is the son of a famous actor/director who lives in obscurity as a school teacher on the west coast. His favourite books are the works of a deceased children's books author who lived the life of a recluse in an obscure Missouri town. Thomas and his new girlfriend, Saxony decide to embark on a mission to write a biography of the late great Marshall France and head out to his hometown of Galen to conduct research on the hero they both have loved since childhood. However all in Galen is not as it seems...This was a slow-burner, taking some time to build up to a great conclusion. Its one of those conclusions where you spot a twist coming from a way off and sit back feeling that you have it all figured out and when the twist does occur, you smile smugly thinking about how you knew that was going to happen. And then out of nowhere comes another, even more fiendish, unforeseen twist that really sets your hair on end. A great ending which just leaves one imagining all the possibilities that could come after.I read the fantasy masterworks edition of this book and while there were some issues with the book (some patches seem particularly stilted - possibly the fact that this was the author's first book showing) overall the ideas here are great. Its a book where the fantasy is understated - almost more of a magical realism, or horror book, where the supernatural aspect is under the surface for 3/4 of the book and only starts to emerge slowly.
    • 5/5
      Bizarre and intriguing are two of the most accurate descriptors I can think of for Carroll's work, The Land of Laughs. I can't wait to pick up more by this author, who seems to have a great grasp on character development, but is able to pair it appropriately with a fun and unique storyline. Thomas Abbey's growth within the book was solidified in me in the final paragraphs of the epilogue, as either madness or genius is hinted at. Either way, his character has changed, making the time spent in Galen, focusing on the life and achievements of his favorite author come full circle, as the student becomes the master.
    • 4/5
      My first Jonathan Carroll book. Won't be my last. Fun and odd.
    • 4/5
      Thomas Abbey leads an undistinguished, unsatisfying existence. He teaches English at a boy's prep school, but is chiefly known as the son of a glamorous 1940's film actor. He bitterly resents this constant association but feels unable to escape it. For his entire life he's lived in the shadow of his late father and their conflicted relationship. When he was a child, his greatest solace was found in the fanciful books of Marshall France, a reclusive writer who died at forty-four. One day, in an antiquarian bookshop, the doleful teacher meets an eccentric woman, Saxony Gardner, who is equally obsessed with France and together they travel to the writer's adopted hometown in Missouri to start work on a France biography. But almost nothing in the sleepy town of Galen is what it seems and slowly their idyllic existence turns into an inescapable nightmare. Like Neil Gaiman , I am a huge fan of Jonathan Carroll, but of all his works, this novel has particular resonance for me. It suggests that our lives, our selves, even, to a great extent, our world, are largely products of our influence on them. That we are the authors of our own story; we collaborate with our histories to create ourselves and thus the past is as mutable as our relationship with it. The book is chock full of symbolism that deftly illustrates its twin themes of self-invention (e.g., Abbey is a collector of masks) and self-determination (e.g., his lover, Saxony, a maker of elaborate marionettes). This is a vigorous, engaging read told in a naturalistic, matter-of-fact style that belies the tension and horror lurking just beneath the surface. The characters are well-fleshed out and human with relatable, believable motivations. And despite a shocking climax, at least the denouement allows Thomas Abbey to finally make peace with his past and even find ways to make use of it.
    • 5/5
      This has one of the most satisfying endings I have read in a while. Carroll does a great job establishing a mood and exploring the power of the written word. One really does not know where this novel is going until well into it when the fantasy aspects set in . Defintily a worthy read.
    • 2/5
      As the lowest rating for this book, I feel like it's my duty to let everyone know why!For me, there was not enough return for the creepiness of the story. Yes, it had a great twist at the end, yes it was well written in it's way, yes I felt for the main character ... but. It was largely predictable, more of a showcase of the bizarre than a cohesive story. The whole thing left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn't look at that breed of dog for months without shuddering!The most apt description of this book was actually in the book itself, like driving down the road, and you pass a cow pasture, you just roll your window up and keep driving until you are through it, what else can you do?
    • 5/5
      Creepy. Wonderful. Bizarre. Unforgetable. My first encounter with Carroll and the start of a long relationship.
    • 3/5
      Jonathan Carroll is brilliant and aggravating. This one didn't work so well for me. The concept advertises itself too early on, and the rest of the book doesn't have the suspense it might. I liked it; didn't love it.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my all-time favorite books, which I've now read at least 15 times. After this first introduction into "Carroll-world", I've felt compelled to read every other Carroll book as soon as it's out. I don't follow any other author this way.