Now It's Time to Say Goodbye

Rating:
Summary: Kansas thriller
Review: Colin and Justin flee New York City for the small Kansas town of Galatea (also known as Galatia), where Colin hopes to be able to write again. Soon the two are drawn into the racially-charged, secretive town's web as a young woman disappears. Every denizen of the town, whether from the poor black side of Galatia or the slightly more wealthy white side of Galatea, holds a secret or a sliver of one, and this immense pile of kindling nearly destroys the town. Sowing his novel's field with seeds of Southern literature, social commentary, and intriguing observations, Peck cultivates what he hopes is a lush and vibrant garden, but it doesn't reach fruition by the final pages. Too many story seeds and too many quirky elements (the constant unique names, for one), which all are invigorating at the beginning, soon become monotonous. I felt trapped by the story, held hostage, and while the story compelled me to the end, I didn't feel fulfilled by it. Several passages could have been edited out of the novel, and this might have created a tighter, brisker story. Overall, it's a fascinating mystery set in a small town, but the horizons it reaches for are not reached.

Rating:
Summary: Pulp-modernism!
Review: Dale Peck's new book is probably his best. The heartbreaking fragility of his first two books -- due not only to the author's age and the autobiographical nature of his writing, but the strange and shocking mix of the very real and the very imagined -- is gone. This mythic tale of a racially split Kansas hamlet is full of stories of the darkest and sometimes most outlandish variety, delivered to the reader by many of the town's longing citizens. Peck loves his town and details it with exquisite care; now baroque, now biblical, sometimes as bare as the flat stretches of dust-land so prevalent in the book's literal landscape, the prose engages and keeps moving, as the plot's complex design works for optimum story-pleasure. A book about self-mythologizing as a defense against trauma -- racial, sexual, romantic, familial -- "Now It's Time To Say Goodbye" bids farewell to Peck's sublime, solpisistic fictions, promising a wide and varied career ahead. This is an American potboiler for everyone. Forget cliche by-the-numbers realism like Richard Price's "Freedomland." If you really want to know what's going on in America, forget Price, forget Oprah, and read this book. Get ready to be shocked, in the only way that matters: there's a truly vital new American book out there. Yeah!

Rating:
Summary: A Twisted Tale from Many Vantage Points
Review: Dale Peck's Now It's Time to Say Goodbye is a wonderfully written trip through a Kansas prairie town that is sparked off by the arrival of two New Yorkers, Colin Nieman and Justin Time. The story is told from many, many different vantage points as each snippet of a section focuses on a different personality in the town, actually two towns, one black and one white, with many secrets. It is all of these supporting characters that will carry the reader throught the myriad strands of the plot. It is wonderful that the author has been ablet to use his accomplished skill in the short story and transferred it to this epic novel. Like his short stories, much will be left unexplained and that will frustrate many readers but this is not a book about solutions (although there are some) but about crossing boundaries (and there is much of that). It is a wonderful book about America, all of America, the real America.

Rating:
Summary: YOU'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE, DEAR READER
Review: I only write reviews of books I truly love. I don't have time to review books I don't enjoy. I want people to read the books I love. Therefore I am adding my five stars worth to the other reviews. I can understand how this book might elicit a wide range of reviews. Understand this: this book is not for the squemish, or people who feel uncomfortable with gay lead characters. This book is a wonderful thriller. The author has managed to create a gothic thriller set in the lonely environs at the center of our country. If this book does not make you afraid of the dark, or make you wince, or at the very least, make you feel uncomfortable, then please check your pulse.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant ...
Review: I've been thinking for some time that I wanted to post a review of this book because I find it to be so intricate in both content and form. I have to say that, unlike a few of the other reviewers here, I went looking for this book because of the reviews that I had read of it in the gay press, and also because I was deeply moved by Peck's other novels. Peck's writing style is distinctive and graceful, while at the same time seamless and brutal, and his understanding of what it means to be marginalized -- whether that marginalization is based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or class -- and what such marginalization can begat, is obvious yet never patronizing. Like many worthwhile novels, the themes here are not easy and the characters are not altogether lovable. But this novel rocked my world.

Rating:
Summary: I find the title deceiving
Review: In the twinned towns of Galatia and Galatea, Kansas everything means something else.

This is the key to Dale Peck's astonishing third novel Now It's Time to Say Goodbye. Seven characters speak to us in their own distinct voice while a dozen or so more are revealed by a seemingly omniscient narrator.

It is often hard to understand the meanings and motives at play, but how often do we really understand what we do? This book is about meaning, the power to take control of things through words and the ascribing of motives.

"People don't want the truth, they want explanations," Colin, a novelist, is told late in the book. Keep this in mind as you reach into the book and enjoy its stories, explore its unforgiving setting and learn to care about its richly made and mostly unloveable characters. Let yourself be astonished by what the human mind can do.

Rating:
Summary: This is TRASH, TRASH, TRASH.
Review: It's been a year or so since I have read any books. A month ago I went to the bookstore and picked this up. I loved it and could not put it down. A little confusing at times, but stick with it. It's a good read.

Rating:
Summary: An Atmospheric Thriller with No Resolution
Review: Some parts of this book were fascinatingly complex and engaging. Other parts were just confusing and highly annoying, with way too much sex (all gay and graphic.) I kept wanting the story tied up and to understand why characters did what they did, thought what they thought. Ultimately it was just too long winded and pompous and went no where. It had enough for me to read it all the way through but I wanted to scream at the end in frustration. Read "What We Lost" by Dale Peck instead.

Rating:
Summary: The (un)solved mystery...
Review: You know, I almost didn't read this book because of bad reviews. I'm glad I gave Peck the chance. When a book leaves me somewhat frustrated, somewhat pissed at the author; when book leaves me feeling stupid, feeling like I missed something; when a book doesn't fit nicely into the neat little boxes of "novel," "mystery," "horror," "contemporary gay fiction," or other, I feel I've read a good book. Peck takes you on a mystery tour that has somewhat of a predictable ending, but when you turn the last page, you still know you've missed something. How can Peck make me feel he's presenting a mystery to me, provide some closure, and still have me thinking I missed something? Throughout the book I felt I was being given clues, I felt Peck was opening doors here and there, dropping hints all around, begging me--daring me--to put together the puzzle. I thought I was. But I somehow feel I didn't, that I missed it; maybe I'm stupider than most. But I loved it... I felt there was more going on than what I was reading. Peck's ability to command the use of the subtle left me gaping and taking off my hat to him. Great job!

Rating:
Summary: The (un)solved mystery...
Review: You know, I almost didn't read this book because of bad reviews. I'm glad I gave Peck the chance. When a book leaves me somewhat frustrated, somewhat pissed at the author; when book leaves me feeling stupid, feeling like I missed something; when a book doesn't fit nicely into the neat little boxes of "novel," "mystery," "horror," "contemporary gay fiction," or other, I feel I've read a good book. Peck takes you on a mystery tour that has somewhat of a predictable ending, but when you turn the last page, you still know you've missed something. How can Peck make me feel he's presenting a mystery to me, provide some closure, and still have me thinking I missed something? Throughout the book I felt I was being given clues, I felt Peck was opening doors here and there, dropping hints all around, begging me--daring me--to put together the puzzle. I thought I was. But I somehow feel I didn't, that I missed it; maybe I'm stupider than most. But I loved it... I felt there was more going on than what I was reading. Peck's ability to command the use of the subtle left me gaping and taking off my hat to him. Great job!