Twilight

William Gay
Fiction
Pages: 249
Suggested By: Joel Tomlin
Date Started: June 7, 2019
Date Finished: June 9, 2019
6h 43m 19s
Reason Book was Chosen:
This is one of three books recommended by Joel Tomlin, owner of Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, TN. I asked him for the top three books written by Southern Authors. Stephen King also really liked this book.

My Thoughts

Twilight is a coming of age story told in perhaps the darkest and most sinister manner imaginable. It’s a story containing a sadistic undertaker, his diabolical hitman, and a horror-filled chase. These three quotes best sum up the main character Tyler’s path in the book:

All these myriad differences between the world he was discovering and the world he’d been taught. There was nothing in Yeats or Eliot or Browning to cover this…

There was more wickedness in the world than you thought and you’ve stirred it up and got it on you, ain’t ye?

A black Buick Loadmaster, he didn’t even have to thumb it. It stopped and sat idling and he took up the suitcase and peered through the windowless and a curious trick of the light behind him rendered the glass opaque and mirrored so that instead of the driver of the car he saw only his own reflection leaning toward itself. In this altered light, it was a new Tyler, older, perhaps wiser, more versed in the reckless ways of a reckless world, as if in some way he had hitched a ride with a more sinister self, ten years down the line.

This book reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, my least favorite book for this entire project, or said differently, my most despised book of the project. I’m not big on southern gothic novels containing things I’d rather not read about. There was a great quote from this book that summed up my feelings:

There’s things in this world better let alone. Thing sealed away and not meant to be looked upon. Lines better not crossed, and when you do cross em you got to take what comes.

Despite the darkness, I had a hard time putting the book down. I really wanted to find out what happened. But in general, I’d rather not read books like this.

2 Comments. Leave new

Share Your Thoughts:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill out this field
Fill out this field
Please enter a valid email address.

The Fifth Risk
Splendor of God