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    Damascus Gate: A Novel
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    Damascus Gate: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Damascus Gate: A Novel
    Ebook698 pages12 hours

    Damascus Gate: A Novel

    By Robert Stone

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist: A reporter researching “Jerusalem Syndrome” is snared in a terrorist plot in a“transcendent thriller” (Time).


    American journalist Christopher Lucas has arrived in the Middle East to research the phenomenon known as Jerusalem Syndrome—a religious psychosis among tourists who become so overwhelmed by the Holy Land that they erupt in a sometimes dangerous mania. A rationalist outsider navigating an insular world of increasing hysteria, Lucas at first seems immune. But soon his own obsession for Jewish jazz singer Sonia Barnes draws him deeper into the fanatical cult, and into a very real and immediate threat: a plot to hasten the coming of the Messiah by blowing up the Muslim shrines in the Temple Mount.
     
    Now, swirling around Lucas in an apocalyptic undertow are Communist revolutionaries, Palestinian terrorists, Hamas agents, fundamentalist Christians, right-wing fanatics, a duplicitous Israeli secret agent, a ruthless soldier of fortune, a strung-out Kabbalist, and Sonia herself. Each one is complicit in a conspiracy that will drive Lucas from the riot-filled streets to an underground maze, where he uncovers the duplicity and depravity on all sides of Jerusalem’s struggle. 

    From the author of the National Book Award winner Dog Soldiers, this novel about the desperate search for redemption—and those who are all too willing to provide it—is “a stunning achievement” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 16, 2013
    ISBN9780547719320
    Author

    Robert Stone

    ROBERT STONE (1937–2015) was the acclaimed author of eight novels and two story collections, including Dog Soldiers, winner of the National Book Award, and Bear and His Daughter, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His memoir, Prime Green, was published in 2007.

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    Reviews for Damascus Gate

    3.5/5

    101 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Some elements in "Damascus Gate" will seem pretty familiar to fans of Robert Stone: illegal opiates, the presence of seductive, destructive personalities, a general atmosphere of paranoia and eschatological dread. "Damascus Gate" differs from Stone's other novels in important ways, though. Stone's made something of a specialty of exploring the messy, often sinister aftermath of the revolutionary sixties, but "Damascus Gate" is set in Jerusalem, and many of the novel's protagonists aren't merely after pleasure or some self-defined personal Nirvana. Some, such as a half-Jewish practicing Sufi and the illegitimate child of a Jewish academic and a Christian woman, are attempting to navigate between religious traditions. Others are seeking to fulfill age-old prophecies. Since "Damascus Gate" is still a Robert Stone novel, we do meet a few hustlers, maniacs, and con men, but all of this book's characters are attempting to reconcile ancient traditions and modernity in a place where, to paraphrase one character, religion isn't just the past, it's also the future. Stone seems to have done his homework, too. While many of the characters in his other books are more-or-less content to get by on the easy hippie aphorisms of the peace and love decade, some of the characters in "Damascus Gate" get caught up in the less-accessible mysticisms and political movements of the past. This isn't just set dressing, mind you: Stone's characters aren't always acting out of self-interest, and the choices that they face often hinge on how they've answered big questions regarding culture, place, and God. Stone's take on Jerusalem is also invigorating: he refuses to treat the place as either a shrine or a museum and seems well attuned to the complex patchwork of political, economic, religious and sectarian interests that seem to dominate even the simplest action or transaction there. What's most conventional about "Damascus Gate" is its plot -- Stone's working within a fairly standard, if well-rendered, thriller structure here, which might disappoint some of his more literary-minded readers. Even so, his writing's sinewy economy, and his gift for rendering swift, accurate descriptions of characters and landscapes is still very much in evidence here.
    • 3/5
      Thriller set in Jerusalem with religious and political intrigue. I realized after I started reading that it was not the kind of book I normally read, but it got rave reviews from most reviewers, so I think if this is your kind of genre, you will love this book.
    • 2/5
      I picked up this book because of a review I read. It looked intriguing. Unfortunately, the story didn't live up to its review. Too much repetition and false erudition. I was tempted to give it up a dozen times, but I tend to keep reading even if the story and writing is not wonderful. In this case, it was good enough to keep me reading, but just barely. The 500 page book could have been condensed to 200 pages and that might have made it better. I would not recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      The story line meanders a bit without any apparent reason. But then that is true of life also. Not everyone is living out a carefully conceived plot. However the stories themselves are interesting and informative.
    • 4/5
      An intellectual thriller that dabbles in Jewish mysticism and syncretic exotica. I found the ending disappointingly flat.
    • 4/5
      An entertaining story that delves into Israel and metaphysics and the people it attracts.