The Long Rain

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Summary: It should be called Long Nights...
Review: Because that's how long it'll take a person to get into it! The author's dialogue is depleted after the first conversation...It's not very comlex, or inventive. I just hope that I don't sound like that when I talk! But it is very realistic, and if you like wineries, wine-making, and un-involving character situations, then you will enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: they should call it Long Nights...
Review: Because that's what it will feel like to read! The dialogue is depleated after the first conversation between characters, and the wine-making repetition is rediculous! (to me)...But if you like wineries, wine-making, and a lesson on how to make a smashing cabernet, this is the book for you!

Rating:
Summary: Good information about wine making!
Review: Gadol, Peter--The Long Rain--(Picador USA: New York, 1997)

Lawyer Jason's Dark's life seemed to be falling into place after he reunited with his estranged wife Julie and son Tim and began to rebuild his family's vineyard. Then suddenly, while speeding through a California road late one rainy night, he struck and killed a teenage boy. He was aware of his need to report his accident to authorities. However, circumstances kept occurring which allowed him to make excuses to delay his confession.

How Jason lived with this dark secret made for interesting reading, but the story took some unbelievable twists. The characters never seemed real to me. I was actually more interested in the story of Jason's vineyard than the story of his moral dilemma. I found the fact that a professional lawyer would be sharing his life story (albeit edited) with his incarcerated client both unethical and unlikely. As for the novel's end, it was preposterous!

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Summary: This is a great book
Review: Hi, I read the book called The Long Rain. This was a O.K. book. I honestly didn't like the book in the beginning. I didn't like it because the main character tried to hide the fact that he had taken a life of a young boy. He did this to try to protect a vineyard behind his house in the wine region state of California. He also tried to hide it because of his wife and child. I think that he should have just told the truth in the first place because he ended up trying to defend the man that the police had brought in for questioning. He was the only one that knows the truth about what actually happenend. To find out other things that happened, read this book.

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Summary: Book jacket deceiving, but interesting story nonetheless. .
Review: I have to admit, I was attracted to the book not by reviews but b/c of the blood red jacket painted with raindrops. I felt the book jacket was misleading, the reader is lead to believe the novel is a fast-paced recount of a man who accidentally commits murder, allows another man to take the fall and then defends him for the crime. Grisham Gadol is not, THE LONG RAIN is a thinking novel. Jason Dark has committed not one but (2) heinous crimes: not only has he killed a teenage boy, he has allowed an angry town convict an innocent man--Troy Frantz. Dark is undeniably linked to Frantz [his alter ego perhaps?] from the beginning. As the story unfolds, Troy Frantz's life parallels Dark's in an eerie way. They are both married and separated from their wife and teenage son. Each caught in a prison that they have created for themselves: one from self-doubt, the other from guilt. Mind you, I haven't finished the book yet so I'm not quite sure where their relationship is heading, though I suspect the journey is a therapeutic one for both of them. The novel also touches upon cause and reaction: Dark's secrets and how they effect his relationship with his wife, his son, himself and the family vineyard. Dark's pasttime of revitalizing the vineyard, and how it too, is greatly affected by his emotional state.

Rating:
Summary: Very provocative
Review: I really liked the main theme of this book, which was the moral dilemma that the character faced after he killed a boy in a hit and run accident. I also thought that the author had a marvelous command of the English language and used beautiful descriptive passages. Also loved the repetitive theme of the hard-driving rain.

However, I found it to be a very slow read during certain scenes in the vineyard, and there was something one-dimensional about the characters other than Jason. I never really got a feel for Julia and Tim. And I certainly agree with one of the other reviewers here on Amazon that the ending seemed completely unrealistic, and I could not picture a lawyer confiding in his client the way that Jason did, no matter how distraught he felt. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the book very much.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome read
Review: My daughter suggested this book to me specifically because of my interest in wine. Gadol has influence over his descriptive license and he takes advantage of it. At times, he certainly made me feel that I was at the vineyard tending the vines and trellises, harvesting in the open air, crushing the cab or bottling the brew. There are instances however that I felt the prose to be too introspective and emotional. I have to admit, once or twice I felt like jumping off of the rock that overlooks the valley myself. While I was interested in most of the conversations, I also found myself longing for more and better dialogue. Some of the twists in the plot were very interesting while others were set up transparently. All in all, The Long Rain is an enjoyable book and one that I would suggest to readers who love wine and a good fiction.

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Summary: AN ABSORBING AND SENSUALLY RICH PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
Review: Peter Gabol's 'The Long Rain' is a story of relationships--wife and husband, father and son, mother and son, friends and foes--and it is misguided to try to compare this novel with those of of John Grisham or Scott Turow, just because the main character happens to be a lawyer.

'The Long Rain' is unique in its genre--its prose is well-crafted, sensual, and amazingly vivid. The essence of this book is not so much what is happening to the character (he loses his marriage, job and runs over a teenager by accident) but how he reacts to these events, and whether he chooses to be honest with the people around him when he finds himself in a situation where he must face his shortcomings. The setting is in the wine country somewhere in California, and that in itself makes it an interesting read.

What makes 'The Long Rain' unique is the author's ability to get into the mind of a man whose worth enemy is his own self--Gadol makes the reader believe that Jason (the protagonist) is in fact trapped by his own stupidity and by the lack of faith in those around him -- he chooses to lie to his wife and son, claims that he loves his wife more than anything in the world, and yet never gives her a chance to help him when he is caught in a horrendous accident. Instead he lets an innocent man take the fall for his mistake. What is scary about this main character is that it's easy to see ourselves in his shoes, and realise that if we had been caught in same situation, we might have reacted and acted the same way.

'The Long Rain' is a psychological thriller of an anti-hero that reminds us how complex and fearful life can be when we no longer follow our moral conviction. It's a study of human behaviour set in a lavishing and unusual setting. Peter Gadol has crafted a multi-dimensional novel that is both haunting and revealing. You will enjoy this book if you enjoy your thrillers with more philosophical depth than your average thriller. An honest study into the darkness of an everyday man.

Rating:
Summary: So real to life
Review: The protoganist has lost the two things that mean the most to him: family and job. As he sorts out his life and tries to start anew, things start going well, then everything suddenly takes a turn for the worse. Guilt from being involved in an accident that claims the life of a teen-age boy consumes his thoughts. He wants to confess, but fails to do so. We, the readers, feel for him. What would we do in this situation?

There are many characters and conflicts in this novel that stir the emotions. The main character is a lawyer, and although a lawyer should be ethical, it is the human side that takes over. I can relate to issues that are raised and to the protagonist. I hope that I would react diffently, but would I under the same circumstances?

I likee the book for the style of writing, the plot, and how it stirs the emotions.

Rating:
Summary: Murder with a twist
Review: We know the killer. We know it was an accident. And we wonder how he can possibly get out of his own personal nightmare of having become a hit-and-run driver. This guy is an attorney, and he not only covers up his own involvement in the case, but he also finds himself defending in court the transient who is wrongly accused of the crime.
Talk about twisted!
Lies begin to pile up and we find ourselves feeling both sympathy and disgust for Jason, the killer/lawyer. It's a page-turner, for sure.