Rating: 
Summary: Unconvincing
Review: An introspective, depressing book. The hero has stumbled out of 25 years in jail for murdering a girl when he was a teenager. Now in his forties, the book describes his travails in readjusting to his old neighbourhood.Throughout most of the book, the reader is teased with a constant ambiguity. Did Gordon Loomis murder the girl, or was it done by his sidekick? A deliberate result is a tension in the reader's attitude to him. Is Loomis really guilty but repentant? Or is he actually innocent? This book is not really a straightforward crime novel, per se. Emphasis is more on the psychological aspects of the character. Subtler than most crime novels. But perhaps somewhat unsatisfying to a reader who expects the latter. The passivity of Loomis, while maybe realistic, does not lend to an interesting read. One thing that Morris might perhaps have made more of is the adjustment after 25 years of absence. The book is set somewhere in 2003+. So Loomis is from the late 70s. Consider the myriad changes in American society since. Back then, no Walkmans or PCs. No cellphones. ATMs were just being introduced. No laser bar code scanners in stores. Plus, of course, the changes in fashions for men and, especially, women, during this period. Granted, Loomis would have seen some of this on TV when in jail. But that is vastly different from seeing it live. And of course, the change in prices. Morris periodically alludes to these changes throughout the narrative. But I would suggest that to Loomis, they would have far greater prominence. There have been in fact cases in real life with parallels to this. Like a woman who became a cloistered nun for several decades, early in the twentieth century. She then returned to society, and later wrote a book about the vast changes she felt.
Rating: 
Summary: Morris Is Back With a Winner!
Review: I found "A Hole in the Universe" to be Morris' best novel since "A Dangerous Woman" (which I loved and highly reccomend), because what she does in these two novels is what she does better than almost anyone else: she brilliantly captures the essence of characters who are on the fringes of society; those who are socially inept, socially shunned, those "too needy" for other people's confort levels. She very craftily makes her readers both sympathetic, and at the same time repelled, by her characters.
Rating:
Summary: Best money spent
Review: I LOVE Mary McGarry Morris so what you'll read here is 100% biased. Having devoured A Dangerous Woman and Vanished before realizing Ms. McHarry Morris is not exactly prolific, I promised to buy my own copy of her subsequent books and refrain from lending them to others if she'd just "step on it" a bit more. Fell on deaf ears, though ... . Alas, what attracts me to her books are the characters and the prose. Her characters are somewhere between mainstream akimbo and slipstream irregular; fringe-dwellers who we're all capable of employing at one time or another. Her dialogue flows easily and every so often hesitates momentarily for honest and revealing introspection. My offer still stands, Ms. McGarry Morris: Hardcover purchase, no lending. Now, get going on the next book!
Rating:
Summary: Best money spent
Review: I LOVE Mary McGarry Morris so what you'll read here is 100% biased. Having devoured A Dangerous Woman and Vanished before realizing Ms. McHarry Morris is not exactly prolific, I promised to buy my own copy of her subsequent books and refrain from lending them to others if she'd just "step on it" a bit more. Fell on deaf ears, though ... . Alas, what attracts me to her books are the characters and the prose. Her characters are somewhere between mainstream akimbo and slipstream irregular; fringe-dwellers who we're all capable of employing at one time or another. Her dialogue flows easily and every so often hesitates momentarily for honest and revealing introspection. My offer still stands, Ms. McGarry Morris: Hardcover purchase, no lending. Now, get going on the next book!
Rating:
Summary: I cared about these characters!
Review: I've read many reviews of books with the testimony "I couldn't put it down'" but had never really felt that way about a book. To me that was one of the beautiful things about a book, I could always put it down and do something else and come back to it when it suited me. Last night I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish the last 100 pages of A Hole in the Universe. I so needed to know what was going to happen to Gordon, Jada and Delores the three main characters in the novel. Mary McGarry Morris makes these characters part of your life and you care deeply for them and hope beyond hope that their lives will get better. Needless to say I loved this book!
Rating:
Summary: I cared about these characters!
Review: I've read many reviews of books with the testimony "I couldn't put it down'" but had never really felt that way about a book. To me that was one of the beautiful things about a book, I could always put it down and do something else and come back to it when it suited me. Last night I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish the last 100 pages of A Hole in the Universe. I so needed to know what was going to happen to Gordon, Jada and Delores the three main characters in the novel. Mary McGarry Morris makes these characters part of your life and you care deeply for them and hope beyond hope that their lives will get better. Needless to say I loved this book!
Rating:
Summary: "Nothing could plug the hole he had made in the universe"
Review: Mary McGarry Morris dazzled us with her hard-hitting Songs in Ordinary Time and Fiona Range, and now she dishes up another feast for the reader. In A Hole in the Universe, she delivers an uncompromising and forceful story, full of wonderfully challenging characters, and remarkably interesting and heart rendering situations. The narrative centers on the character of Gordon Loomis who has just spent twenty-five years in prison for murder. He returns to his neighborhood as a changed man, but he also sees a neighborhood that has suffered the effects of urban blight where drug dealers now proliferate and property remains uncared for. With the help of his brother, Dennis, a successful oral surgeon, Gordon tries to desperately remake himself in a community that fears him and sees him as a criminal. Gordon's neighborhood is rundown but vitality was everywhere - women are on their front steps day or night, children play on the sidewalks, and music blasts from idle cars. Life might be a struggle, "but energy charges the air, blind and unstoppable." Yet Gordon finds a world gone awry, the planet tipped. "Instead of meteors, airplane bolts, and metal chunks fall from the sky." Gordon hates talking about himself: the misery of it, the emptiness, the dead echo behind every word like footsteps through an endless tunnel. Twenty-five years earlier, evil had invaded his aimless, blundering life, and he doesn't know how he can live with the consequences of what he has done. The strength of this novel is the wonderfully three-dimensional characters. Feaster and Polie, the two local drug dealers, who recruit the young Jada - who hungers for love just as she hungers constantly for food. And then there's Delores, earthy, solicitous and who insinuates herself into Gordon's life and who tries to do the best by him and feeds off his private needs and loneliness. When Gordon discovers that his brother, Dennis is having an affair with a local realtor, he feels obliged to tell his wife, Lisa, because he just can't spend his whole life turning his back, not seeing and never doing the honorable thing. Gordon is someone who needs the "anonymity of blank spaces" yet he has not realized how strange freedom would be, how alien he would feel. How we remake our lives and what we do with the life we are given is at the thematic core of A Hole in the Universe. And some readers may find Morris's view of the world unintentionally bleak, as she sees us as no more than "inconsequential flees jumping through our preordained hoops in a meaningless cosmos, hopeless, helpless, and blameless." Morris also delves into the psyche of the criminal and postulates that just as criminals are locked up to protect society, so are the imprisoned safe from society's expectations and nuances. Activities such as paying bills, entering relationships, and holding down a job are probably unfathomable language for some men. In Gordon Loomis, Morris gives us a stalwart, sturdy and robust character that perseveres and tries to meet the challenges of life on the "outside." Mike Leonard April 04
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent writing, depressing story.
Review: Morris has a way of writing that enables the reader to get deep into a character's psyche, and this book was no exception. Each character in this book is in some way intensely desperate, and very real. Morris' writing style is incredible, her descriptions sharp, and her pacing satisfying.
That said, this is one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Nothing good happens until page 266, and it was a tough, tough read up to that point. I had to push myself to finish it. While Morris' writing is phenomenal, this just isn't the way I want to spend my free time.
Rating:
Summary: Like watching "The Sopranos"...
Review: OK, now that I've got your attention...reading any of Ms. Morris' books is like watching the show "The Sopranos". It is totally and completely absorbing with characters that are SO REAL, you think about them when not reading, and after you're done. And her endings are not necessarily "happily ever after", as real life doesn't just "finish happily" either. You have met every one of her characters somewhere in your life, but now you get a glimpse into what THEY'RE thinking. Ms. Morris you are one of my absolutely favorite authors, and I obviously read all your books, the best being "Songs in Ordinary Time". In this book I recognize that Gordon is emotionally dead throughout the book, can't care about anyone, but is always on top of his gardening - is that cause they can't hurt him? Or cause he really wants to believe in life? Anyone who wishes to discuss any of her books can email me at Cindytam@optonline.net. Thanks all!
Rating:
Summary: FINE READING OF A THOUGHTFUL STORY
Review: Readers of Morris's four previous novels know that few can script dialogue with her skill and understanding of human foibles. This is rich territory for actor Jason Culp to mine and he does it superbly, whether it is the voice of Gordon Loomis, a man recently released from prison after 25 years or a 13-year-old street child who ekes out a living dealing drugs. Loomis has almost as much trouble outside prison walls as he did inside. He returns to his old neighborhood, which is dramatically changed. It's rundown, rife with drug dealers. His brother tries to help him find work, and Delores, the woman, who visited him regularly seeks to reconnect with him. He cannot forget his senseless crime; others don't want him to forget it. As she has done in the past Morris draws sharply etched, sympathetic portraits of the down and outers. We see them through her eyes and perhaps rethink our definition of forgiveness.
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