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    Orient
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    Orient
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    Orient
    Ebook738 pages11 hours

    Orient

    By Christopher Bollen

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

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    About this ebook

    Suspenseful and haunting, Bollen's thrilling novel Orientis a provocative take on the troubled American dream, in the vein of Lionel Shriver or AM Homes.

    At the eastern edge of Long Island, far from the hustle of New York City, stands Orient, a village that has been home to a few families for hundreds of years and is now - reluctantly - opening up to wealthy weekenders and artists from the city.

    On the last day of summer, a young man with a hazy past appears, and, not long after his arrival comes a series of events that shatters the peace in this isolated community. A strange, twisted creature washes ashore on the Sound and, soon after, a human corpse is found floating in the water. An elderly woman dies in bizarre circumstances and a house fire erupts out of nowhere. Fear and suspicion mount until everyone's secrets threaten to be exposed. But who is Mills Chevern? What is his real name and why is he here? As all eyes shift towards the orphan drifter, Mills elicits the support of Beth Shepherd, an Orient native who is hiding a secret of her own.

    'A compelling novel of tragic suspense. Bollen has a gift for tightly drawn characters and an ominous sense of place' AM Homes

    'A taut and elegant suspenseabout strangers and strangeness, suspicion and forgiveness, reinvention and confession' Joshua Ferris

    'Secrets, parochial gossiping, casual xenophobia, proximity to a large water and a decent body count: what more could you need from a thriller. Bollen's rich novel has all the right ingredients and he serves them up suspensefully as he tears down his version of the American dream' Fiona Wilson, The Times

    'Bollen writes expansive, psychologically probing novels in the manner of Updike, Eugenides and Franzen …The generic and literary pleasures of this novel sit well together and are of the highest order' Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph

    'Bollen's elegant portrayal of adultery and envy on American's East Coast can't fail to recall John Updike' John Dugdale, Sunday Times

    'Deeply seductive … Orientis like Donna Tartt novelising Twin Peakswhile F. Scott Fitzgerald fixes cocktails' John O'Connell, Guardian
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Release dateApr 9, 2015
    ISBN9781471136177
    Unavailable
    Orient
    Author

    Christopher Bollen

    Christopher Bollen is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Lost Americans, A Beautiful Crime, The Destroyers, Orient, and Lightning People. He is a frequent contributor to a number of publications, including Vanity Fair, the New York Times, and Interview. He lives in New York City.

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    Reviews for Orient

    3.5/5

    7 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Well-written, fair mystery that is more literary fiction than anything. My only quibble is that at times you can see the effort behind his excellent prose. He uses new and interesting metaphors, great imagery and many sentences surprise with their excellence so I feel bad for finding fault for it, but sometimes I just know he is trying too hard.
    • 3/5
      The Orient of the title is a small fishing village on Long Island, with a community split between those who live there all year, and others who own second homes there as retreats from New York. Paul Benchley straddles both groups, having grown up in Orient but subsequently moved to New Yok where, now middle aged, he runs a thriving architectural practice. The start of the novel sees him driving back to Orient accompanied by Mills Chevron, a young man whom he has befriended and taken under his wing. Mills Chevron at nineteen years of age has had a troubled life, passing between various foster families before fending for himself on the streets of New York, getting by through a mix of drug dealing and occasional prostitution. Life in Orient is pleasant, though not idyllic. Across the Sound from its fishing harbour lies Plum Island, historic site of the Federal Government’s chemical research facility. Security is, naturally, intense, and few of Orient’s residents have ever set foot on Plum Island, though speculation abounds about the experiments that are conducted there, and there are widespread rumours about strange creatures that have been glimpsed running around the research facility. There is, then, a heady mix of ingredients, and it is not long before things start to go awry. A man is found drowned in the harbour and hunters find the body of a strange animal, unlike anything they have ever seen before. Meanwhile, Mills starts to find the close knit community in Orient claustrophobic.Bollen develops the atmosphere effectively, changing the narrative perspective with each chapter, building up a credible community of shared aspirations but differing experiences of daily life. One of the critics’ plaudits on the cover suggested that the book was a cross between Donna Tartt and The Great Gatsby, and I can see what they meant. Bollen writes well, too, though he is perhaps too aware of that. There are several passages that are principally designed to demonstrate how clever Bollen is, rather than to advance the story or enhance our understanding of the characters. As a consequence, in addition to being occasionally too self-consciously literary (I think he just tries too hard!), the novel ends up being longer than it needed to be. It is still a very good book, and a rewarding read, but if it had been one hundred pages shorter it might have been fifteen per cent better.
    • 4/5
      Orient was a long, well-written whodunnit that I'm sure will end up as a movie someday soon in this 'Gone Girl' era. At the end of the American world, the eastern tip of Long Island, a man who grew up there returns for a visit along with a strange young man he'd met in NYC and murders begin to occur. Subplots are piled upon subplots (art, development, local history, extramarital affairs, etc.) leading to extreme confusion on the part of local law enforcement (and readers as well) as to who exactly is committing these murders. It's all tied up at the end, though, in what I'd consider to be a rather surprising way.

      I've read comparisons of Bollen's writing to that of Franzen. I don't see it necessarily in his technique- although the writing is great he's not as interested in showing off his massive vocabulary as Franzen. As far as his approach with the subject matter of interpersonal dynamics in a 'family' and a small community, it's an apt comparison.

      I wouldn't say I loved the book. It's too long and one almost needs a scorecard to keep track of the interactions, but I do love a well-written mystery and it definitely fits that bill.
    • 1/5
      I don't recommend this book - it's over 600 pages long, which is at least 300 pages too much. The book is an exercise in author self-indulgence and simply too irritating to talk about further.
    • 4/5
      Orient, a historic Long Island town, takes pride in its quaintness, its closeness to the city, its seaside vistas. Residents identifying themselves as year-rounders have little love for the encroaching weekenders and artist types escaping the city and buying up homes in their little piece of paradise. Mills Chevern has been befriended by one of the town’s many artist-residents and has come to Orient to assist Paul Benchley with some work at his home. But the residents are insular, not easily taking to an outsider, especially when they know nothing about him. As summer draws to a close, residents are stunned when the body of a hideously deformed creature appears on the beach. While some are quick to blame the nearby research lab, it isn’t until people begin to die that fear is ramped to a new high and the townspeople quickly blame the mysterious stranger in their midst. Only Orient native Beth Shepherd is certain that Mills in innocent and she enlists his aid in investigating the circumstances of these deaths. Convinced that they are not the result of natural causes or accidents, the two of them seek to solve the mystery surrounding the murders. But Mills may not be the innocent young man he purports to be and the town harbors its own dark secrets. Will the truth reveal itself before it’s too late?Rich with finely-developed characters, the plot of this gripping, suspenseful page-turner twists its way to a completely unforeseen ending. Readers will be on the edge of their seats until the final page has been turned. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Mills Chevern hitchhikes to New York, gets into trouble, and is rescued by his neighbour, Paul, who asks him to go to Orient with him and help him clear out his family/weekend home. Orient is near Plum Island, a secure government animal research facility and a strange hybrid animal corpse is washed ashore. Then people start dying and Mills is made the scapegoat.This book is perhaps overlong, and either I need to think about it more, or the plot is a bit dodgy in places, but it is beautifully written and characterized. No one is particularly happy or particularly nice to their friends/neighbours, but Bollen manages to describe many many characters in a way that makes them seem real and clearly differentiated from one another. (A special mention of Eleanor here!) My knowledge of the geography of the state of NY has also increased enormously.
    • 4/5
      "Who can lean on Kilimanjaro?" I received a copy of this arc at an ALA convention, and finally picked it up this past week. It is a heavy book to carry, particularly taking public transportation to and from work, but it is well worth lugging around.This book is ostensibly a murder mystery, but it is also a deep and insightful study of humanity, about small towns, cities, marriages, homes, and parenthood. It's about what happens when you reach too high, when you try to rely on something that isn't attainable, and who you hurt when you keep pushing anyway.What particularly impressed me about this book is how good a mystery it was. On top of being beautifully written, and very thoughtful, the mystery is also suspenseful and hard-hitting, The ending comes as a complete shock, but when you look back, it all makes sense, the mark of a really excellent mystery novel.
    • 4/5
      Most of the story is about the conflicts that arise in a small, isolated community. As expected some germinate just because the people have known each other for a long time and live very close together. Irritations become abrasions and turn unbearable. Some conflicts result when newcomers begin to buy property and make demands about their adopted community. It’s an age-old us vs. them tale. One of these newcomers, a drifter who goes by the name of Mills, is taken in by one of the long-time residents and it’s he who kicks off the tale. As one violent event after another strikes the town, he’s the number one suspect as you’d expect. Because this is a character-driven thriller, it takes more patience to finish and to me could have used some paring down. There are a few tangents, which while they might have been interesting for the author to conceptualize and write, weren’t terribly interesting, nor did they have much bearing on the main mystery. Possibly they were meant as red-herrings, but if so they didn’t work on me. I had my suspicions about who might be the culprit; the most innocent and upstanding, and I was borne out, but didn’t really dwell on the who of the who-dunnit, which is a bit of a rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick, but it’s plausible. Instead I was trying to figure out the why angle, which is given in a semi-monologue at the end when the killer and the sleuth confront each other. There are unexpected deaths and while not exactly taut, the story is engrossing.The writing is quite good and kept me interested throughout. There’s gossip and backbiting, but not so vicious as to make the reader feel ashamed for enjoying it. Who doesn’t love a juicy scandal where everyone is guilty and no one is? Many of the characters are petty and vindictive, but they don’t become cartoonish. There’s a lot of misplaced loyalty though and it’s amazing how anything can be justified to oneself. The seemingly opposite goals of preserving the colonial heritage of the town and encouraging growth are well drawn and I sympathized with both sides of the problem.
    • 4/5
      Too long, too many characters, too many angles - but just the right amount of suspense. Bollen's second book is set in Orient, off the Northern tip of Long Island. In real life and fiction it's beautiful and insular. Millionaires and artists are buying up as much property as they can, ousting people who've fished and served their neighbors for generations. Residents are being murdered and strange mutant animals are washing up on shore.Into the mix comes Mills Chevern, a teen runaway who is saved from becoming a junkie in the city by a well-meaning Orient architect. In addition to artist Beth, Mills seems like the only sane person around. Red herrings abound and the ending is somewhat satisfying, with a few nasty surprises. It's just 300 pages too long.
    • 3/5
      Bollen does keep the suspense going throughout. It is not until the last few pages that the villain is revealed. For the most part he did a masterful job of crafting this mystery, however, I did feel at times that there was too much "fat" in the story, that much of the descriptive scenes and references did not assist in propelling the narrative along. One entire chapter near the end of the book, although relatively brief, seemed out of place, out of sequence and oddly juxtaposed, almost an afterthought. I felt as if that particular storyline thread could have been cut dramatically and still it would have served the intended purpose. Overall I enjoyed "Orient" but believe with judicious editing it could have been pared down somewhat to be less ponderous without damaging the tale.
    • 4/5
      I love book covers - imagining what the story might be from the image(s) chosen before I even turn a page. The cover of Christopher Bollen's new book, Orient, grabbed me from the first glance - the colors, that stormy sky, the ominous looking lighthouse - and a great opening prologue...."When people try to picture me, they undoubtedly recall only the last time they saw me, just before I went missing. There's been a lot of speculation about the night I left the Far North Fork of Long Island - how a nineteen-year old wanted for questioning in a string of murders managed to elude police and vigilant local drivers..."The small town of Orient is separated from the mainland by geography, but also by the desire of the inhabitants to just 'leave things be'. Change is not necessary. But it's a beautiful place to live - and a number of 'outsiders' have discovered Orient. One of those native sons brings home Mills, a 'stray' to help him with some home cleanup. And the first body turns up not long after that. That idyllic veneer is paper thin - the town is seething with secrets, recriminations and personal agendas. And then there's that secret government facility on a neighboring island.As I read, I was continually kept off balance - I had no idea what to expect and could not predict where Bollen's tale was going to go. The characters, their actions and their thoughts had me feeling distinctly unsettled - quite frankly I found most of the players to be unlikable, including Mills, who seems to be at the center of things, even though he is a newcomer.But, I couldn't put the book down - I wanted to know who the killer was and what the motive was. I really appreciate an author that can keep me engaged and off kilter. The final whodunit was not what (or who) I expected at all. Bollen's mystery is well plotted, but it is the smoldering tensions and the duplicitous and self-oriented characters that were the stand out for me."Fear was viral, airborne, contagious. It opened doors for him. It allowed him to touch things that weren't his." Delicious. Orient is a chunkster, coming in at over 600 pages - and this reader enjoyed every one.