Rating: 
Summary: she does it again
Review: Niccola Griffith has written another wonderful novel. Perhaps her greatest strengh as an author is her ability to delve so effectivly into the mind of her characters and make them fully developed without resorting to any cliche' or formula. In this follow up to the Blue Place we get to see Aud's tranformation through grief and sadness--and it works. Keep it up Niccola!
Rating:
Summary: Aud is back!
Review: Nicola Griffith breathes life onto paper once again. Stay does not disappoint. Stay is rich and deep. Full of color, of life, of humanity. And of Aud, who we came to love in The Blue Place. Know her, know thyself.Aud is quick-developing a loyal following of strong, thoughtful, intelligent women. (Xena and Kay Scarpetta watch out! Aud is going to give you a run for your money!)
Rating: 
Summary: lesbian heroine but no lesbian conflict/tension
Review: Nicola Griffith's _Stay_ is a standout novel of intrigue and suspense. I will forgo plot summary here as it is available elsewhere on this page. Griffith writes a mesmerizing book that is hard to put down. I read the entire thing in one day. After I began reading, I had to find out how it ended. Griffith plays a nasty trick on the reader. The characters appear to be distinctly one-sided. The 'evil characters' that are harboring a young Mexican girl to be a wealthy New Yorker's child-bride are revealed to be fundamentalist Christians. When the protagonist visits their church, she hears the preacher trying hard to 'convince himself' of his sermon. The young Mexican girl is unnaturally intelligent for her age. The fundamentalists have a 'sinister' wall decoration. But then Griffith reveals that all is not as it appears. The fundamentalists appear to have genuine love for the girl. The priest is trying to protect his flock from the ravages of the world. The wall decoration is fully explained, and the young girl, though still precocious, is not the preternatural genius we originally thought she was. It shouldn't be surprising that Griffith managed to extricate herself from the type of characterizations normally found in shoddy bestsellers. After all, she's a multiple award winner who is routinely praised as one of the best contemporary novelists. _Stay_ is an engaging novel, and though it's not likely to win a Pulitzer, it's definitely worth a few hours of your life.
Rating: 
Summary: A standout novel
Review: Nicola Griffith's _Stay_ is a standout novel of intrigue and suspense. I will forgo plot summary here as it is available elsewhere on this page. Griffith writes a mesmerizing book that is hard to put down. I read the entire thing in one day. After I began reading, I had to find out how it ended. Griffith plays a nasty trick on the reader. The characters appear to be distinctly one-sided. The 'evil characters' that are harboring a young Mexican girl to be a wealthy New Yorker's child-bride are revealed to be fundamentalist Christians. When the protagonist visits their church, she hears the preacher trying hard to 'convince himself' of his sermon. The young Mexican girl is unnaturally intelligent for her age. The fundamentalists have a 'sinister' wall decoration. But then Griffith reveals that all is not as it appears. The fundamentalists appear to have genuine love for the girl. The priest is trying to protect his flock from the ravages of the world. The wall decoration is fully explained, and the young girl, though still precocious, is not the preternatural genius we originally thought she was. It shouldn't be surprising that Griffith managed to extricate herself from the type of characterizations normally found in shoddy bestsellers. After all, she's a multiple award winner who is routinely praised as one of the best contemporary novelists. _Stay_ is an engaging novel, and though it's not likely to win a Pulitzer, it's definitely worth a few hours of your life.
Rating:
Summary: A novel of explosive, devastating power.
Review: The spectacular imagery of the remote southern Appalachian mountains, with its buckeye, jewelweed, basswood, and pileated woodpeckers, comes sensuously to life as a lone woman hacks out shingles for a roof on her cabin and hides from visitors. Suddenly, the woman reacts to this quiet, pastoral scene: "An owl screamed in the wood and I wanted to ride behind its eyes when it plunged its talons into living flesh, wanted to tear something warm and soft to pieces while it squealed." With this remarkable sentence, I was totally hooked--by the strong visual images, by the frightening responses of this damaged woman to the sights and sounds around her, and by the emotional desolation of her life. Aud Torvingen, a former police officer who has killed more than once in the line of duty, has withdrawn from the world to her isolated cabin, grieving and guilt-ridden about the loss of her lover in a shooting she believes to be her fault. When an old friend asks her to find his missing fiancee, Aud journeys to Greenwich Village and a scene of such brutality the reader will not soon forget it. Devastated by the events, Aud understands that she must rebuild her shattered self from the ground up if she ever hopes to recover her life. Griffith's imagery and psychological acuity are overwhelming. She sets up vivid, sensual contrasts between the pastoral life of Appalachia and the urban life of New York, provides total access to Aud's ravaged psyche, makes the reader truly care for this woman who has killed more than once, and encourages us to hope for her emotional rebirth. The book is stunning, and the writing is truly extraordinary! One caveat, however. While most of us willingly suspend disbelief when faced with excellent, compulsively readable fiction, this book, like some other recent books and films, also encourages us to suspend some of our long held values. Some readers may have trouble accepting the premise here that some people are above the law and that ad hoc, vigilante action is sometimes excusable.
Rating:
Summary: believe the subtitle
Review: The subtitle of Nicola Griffith's new book, Stay, is "a novel," but the cover illustration and flap copy suggest the usual ho-hum noir tale: an ex-cop PI riddled with grief and guilt over the death of a lover hiding in the woods to avoid the world, who, big surprise, is called back by a friend to find his missing girlfriend. Been there, done that I thought. But by the end of the first paragraph (woods as waterfall? a quinquireme of Ninevah?!), the subtitle started to make sense. By the time I reached chapter two, I didn't have any doubts: Stay is a novel, and a superb one. It's subtle when you don't expect it, and brutal -- shockingly so in places -- when you've let down your guard. It's a powerful exploration of grief, loss of innocence, and rage. And its power comes from the narrator, Aud Torvingden. In an interview for Bold Type (yes, I googled her name), Griffith says that Aud (rhymes with shroud) "embodies the long journey toward reconciliation of all those parts of our culture that have been artificially levered apart: mind and body, nature and civilization, art and science, man and woman, tenderness and brutality." It's an astonishing claim, but Aud is an astonishing character. She's larger than life -- insanely rich, and capable, and good-looking -- while being simultaneously, and believably, fragile, and vulnerable, and human. Because of a promise she made her dead lover (which sounds like a cliche, but Griffith makes it work), Aud agrees to track the missing girlfriend. To do that she has to leave the woods, which is where I started to understand that Aud's loss has pushed her over the edge. Or has it? The dead lover appears and disappears (which sounds like another cliche, but in Griffith's hands its not -- it reminded me of Toni Morrison's Beloved), and I alternated between heart-thumping tension and lump-in-throat empathy as Aud struggles with a decision. Can she keep the promise she made to her lover to "stay in the world, stay alive inside," or will she turn her face from the painful vulnerability that is her only hope of redemption? The beauty and suspense lies in the way Griffith describes Aud's inner turmoil. She blends a kind of hard and fast noir technique (tracking the missing woman in SoHo; riffling through a sociopath's loft) with quiet, lyrical passages (showing a stranger around the woods). Some of the juxtapositions are shocking: a brutal beating is described in gorgeous prose. A violent fight is described as a kind of ballet. And quiet emotions are given a visceral edge. It's appalling and exhilarating and moving, and I've never read anything like it. My world looks different.
Rating:
Summary: lesbian heroine but no lesbian conflict/tension
Review: This is a decent story, and although it was nice to read about a lesbian heorine for a change, there is really no discussion or even mention of "being gay" in the entire book. The common complexities/difficulties that commonly surround this issue are completely ignored, making the story too unbelievable for my tastes. For example, didn't the fact that Aud prefers women have any effect on her career as a cop, her childhood, or her relationship with her mother? Evidently not, since I don't recall her mentioning "coming out" or any similar incidents when she talked about the past. Wasn't Aud initially curious about Julie's sexual perferences or relationship history? Oh I forgot, in the world of this book, like the others I've ready by this author (The Blue Place, Ammonnite), all the women seem to be lesbians, or at least bisexual, and all the men are completely understanding and supporting of the protoganist's same-sex relationships. This is a nice fantasy and I wish it were true, although it seems too fake for me to really relate to the characters.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect sequel
Review: This is a poor novel based on two dubious premises.
The first is that grief should be overcome through extreme violence. Aud Torvingen doesn't appear to just murder an abuser, she tortures him to death. The second premise is that people involved in child abuse (and the foster family fit that category) can be left in charge of a child. An intriguing moral dilemma for the reader would be whether Aud is capable of making sound moral decisions by the end of the novel. Unfortunately Stay is not that kind of novel. Aud is always right, even when she's committing a murder. So in her universe there are no grey areas, only stark black and white divisions.
Rating: 
Summary: Bully's charter
Review: This is a poor novel based on two dubious premises.
The first is that grief should be overcome through extreme violence. Aud Torvingen doesn't appear to just murder an abuser, she tortures him to death. The second premise is that people involved in child abuse (and the foster family fit that category) can be left in charge of a child. An intriguing moral dilemma for the reader would be whether Aud is capable of making sound moral decisions by the end of the novel. Unfortunately Stay is not that kind of novel. Aud is always right, even when she's committing a murder. So in her universe there are no grey areas, only stark black and white divisions.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful, Dark Series
Review: This is the second in the author's Aud Torvingen series. It opens with Aud in North Carolina trying to recover from the death of her soulmate, Julia. An old friend invades her cocoon to ask her to find his girlfriend. While Aud doesn't think she's ready to return to the world, Julia's voice keeps telling her that she needs to stay in the world. She goes to New York and finds the woman. From that point on, her life careens along - seemingly out of control - and full of ephiphanies and unexpected twists. This series is dark - the protagonist is devastated with grief and guilt over her lover's death - and she is dangerous. The people she seeks are not always amongst the human race's finest specimans. Griffith is a talented author whose writing improves with each outing. Aud is finely drawn, as are the lesser characters. The descriptions of Aud's North Carolina hideaway are vividly written - so much so you can hear the birds calling to one another in your head and smell the wood smoke from her fire. Aud is damaged and struggling with the decision whether to remain alive. Griffith is an underappreciated author who deserves a much wider audience. If you decided to read this novel, read the first in the series. A Blue Place before starting this one. I think you'll be hooked and waiting for the third Aud Torvingen novel with Griffith's other fans.
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