Rating: 
Summary: Intense
Review: "Requiem" is a book that successfully weaves strands of the supernatural into the mundane, everyday world. In my opinion, this is what makes it so different...and so special.The story begins when Kate Webster is killed as she returns home from church. He husband, Tom, is stricken with both intense grief and, though blameless, intense guilt. Although he attempts to carry on with his teaching, he finds each day harder and harder; he eventually quits and, instead, plans an overdue trip to Jeruselem where he visits his long time friend and confidante, Sharon. At first, Tom is entranced with Jeruselem. Everything there seems to hold some spiritual significance, and, for Tom, at least, Jerusalem is a city of myth as well as religion. But Tom came to Jerusalem to escape the torment of Kate's death and, instead of escape, he finds that the hauntings he experienced in England have only intensified in Jerusalem. Tom can't decide if he is becoming the victim of an apparition or the victim of insanity. But there is one thing he knows for sure: the apparitions that torment him in the Holy City are always of the female gender. When a chance meeting places fragments of a Dead Sea Scroll in Tom's hands he is, of course, intrigued. An exact translation is an impossibility, of course, but Tom does locate a demon-plagued scholar who attributes the scroll to none other than Mary Magdalene and informs Tom that it contains an alternate story of Christ's crucifixtion. Despite the above, "Requiem" is definitely not a mystery. It is, rather, a study of the effects of guilt on the human psyche, for Tom Webster is a man riddled with guilt...both deserved and undeserved. I think readers who felt dissatisfaction with the Dead Sea Scroll subplot are missing the fact that it is simply an externalization of Tom's guilt processes and his repressed anger and ambivalence towards women and the power they can hold over men. It is a thread that ties the book into one seamless whole. I'm not even sure that "guilt" and "anger" are precise enough words to use when describing this book. Surely guilt and anger play a part in Tom Webster's agony, but so do many other, more subtle, emotions, for Tom Webster is a man who sees the world in many shades of grey, rather than in black and white. "Requiem" is an richly intense book, peopled with intense characters. I think it is to the author's credit that much of what Tom experiences is never spelled out, but is left to the reader's own individual interpretation instead. If you're looking for something different, "Requiem" might fill the bill. If you're looking for something intense, it would be a good choice as well. Despite it's dark intensity, "Requiem" is not a long or involved book and it reads quite quickly. While I wouldn't want to read this kind of book on a daily basis, I enjoyed it as a change of pace. Joyce definitely deserves a wider audience than he has so far enjoyed. "Requiem" should help him find it.
Rating: 
Summary: My Fave Book of 1996
Review: "Requiem" is an intruiging psychologically based fantasy about a former teacher whose wife has died, so he quits his
job and goes to visit a female "friend" in Jerusalem. There,
he comes to terms about his loss and his past. It's all tangled up with his relationship with his wife and his feelings
for her when she died. The Mary Magdelene mythology also plays
an important role as well as the dijin (demon) mythology. It's a novel about loss, understanding, dreams, love, religion, and acceptance. (Just a side note: "Requiem" reads a LOT like the author Jonathan Carroll, and the subject matter is VERY similar as well. "Requiem" is a MUST read for
ANY Jonathan Carroll fan.)
Rating: 
Summary: WHERE WAS THE FOCUS? JERUSALEM? SCROLL FRAGMENTS?
Review: A very unusual story line that flits back and forth between UK and Jerusalem. The story line is a bit on the edge but thanks to Mr. Joyce's incredible talents is believable and as a result both deliciously eerie and fascinating. Good solid character development and well crafted prose. I absolutely loved this book. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Different, interesting, very well written...wonderful!
Review: A very unusual story line that flits back and forth between UK and Jerusalem. The story line is a bit on the edge but thanks to Mr. Joyce's incredible talents is believable and as a result both deliciously eerie and fascinating. Good solid character development and well crafted prose. I absolutely loved this book. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Quite simply brilliant....
Review: As you get older, it becomes a rare thing indeed to stumble across an author who reignites the passion for reading that you had as a youth. Graham Joyce in general, and "Requiem" in particular has done so for me. What can I say, he has blended complex characters, in a fascinating setting, and twisted it all subtly with a strong dose of fantasy to create one of the most profoundly engaging and thought provoking novels I have ever read. The incredibly powerful images and ideas of this novel have haunted my dreams. I, as a reader, will pay Mr. Joyce the highest compliment I know how to bestow upon an author...I am profoundly grateful, and please, please write more.
Rating:
Summary: Quite simply brilliant....
Review: As you get older, it becomes a rare thing indeed to stumble across an author who reignites the passion for reading that you had as a youth. Graham Joyce in general, and "Requiem" in particular has done so for me. What can I say, he has blended complex characters, in a fascinating setting, and twisted it all subtly with a strong dose of fantasy to create one of the most profoundly engaging and thought provoking novels I have ever read. The incredibly powerful images and ideas of this novel have haunted my dreams. I, as a reader, will pay Mr. Joyce the highest compliment I know how to bestow upon an author...I am profoundly grateful, and please, please write more.
Rating:
Summary: WHERE WAS THE FOCUS? JERUSALEM? SCROLL FRAGMENTS?
Review: Blech. A bunch of psychobabble about some guy's unresolved feelings of guilt over his wife's death. I was so interested in the mystery surrounding the interpretation of the dead sea scrolls, but there was very little devoted to the thrill behind that subplot. Disappointing. The promise of more about the secret of the scrolls and who was after it kept my interest until the end, but it went nowhere and was very disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Finaly a book worth looking for
Review: Dark fantasy? Horror? Whatever! Joyce is the name you should remember. Probably the best book of 'magic realism' of the 90s. How could the judges of the World Fantasy Award overlooked this seminal piece of fiction???
Rating:
Summary: Vivid and ambiguous, like life itself
Review: Graham Joyce came highly recommended by Jonathan Carroll, and that's enough recommendation for me to read a phone book. Requiem, Joyce's fourth novel and the first to be published in the U.S., is a quirky book, written in a weirdly flowing style that I associate with several of today's British authors (Mary Gentle is the author that comes to mind immediately, although shades of Geoff Ryman and Greg Egan are also present). This style is achieved partly through the use of dialogue as a method for moving plot, wherein elements to the story are told by the characters, but almost as a short story told by the narrator to the other characters. The other major element to this style is the use of blind switchbacks (or red herrings) in the plot, and a willingness to "leave out" information, that the reader must fill in by putting together narrator comments, dialogue, and a good guess. In Gentle's case, I can't take this style--she does it to such an extent or I am such a fast reader that I miss the subtle implications and quickly get lost as to what is actually happening. Joyce only does it somewhat, reserving it for the secrets that surround his narrator. Requiem is about guilt. The trick is to determine exactly what guilt. Tom's wife Katie dies in a freak traffic accident--her car is smashed by a fallen tree--so Tom quits his job as a teacher and travels to Jerusalem. Although it's been six months, he still has strange feelings about his wife's death, much more than just the natural ones of mourning and loss. There's also something not quite right at the school, helping him make the decision to leave for awhile. In Jerusalem, he connects with an old college friend, Sharon, who is working for a women's counseling center. Along the way he befriends an old man who runs a hostel. While exploring the old city, something he had always wanted to do, and feels guilty about doing it without Katie, especially after her death, he finds himself adrift, confronted by Arab vagabonds, and this strange old woman who scratches out a message in the sandstone walls with her fingernail. The similarities with Carroll are many. Not only do scenes have that slightly unreal feeling, while remaining so detailed and close to home, the characters are vivid and intriguing, the narrator is questionable in his sanity, and then there's the ancient manuscript that might be a part of the Dead Sea Scrolls find that could change our concept of the gospel as it is now known. In both large and small items, the concept of truth and honesty is ambiguous. I liked Requiem, and almost wanted to read it again as soon as I finished it, to see if there were things that I missed as I sped through the book, caught up in the world and the fine writing. I'm searching for Joyce's other novels, delighted to find another writer who appeals to that same sense of mystery and wonder that has caught me up in the works of Davies, Carroll, and Banks.
Rating: 
Summary: Unique story
Review: I enjoyed the first half of this book but, started getting bored with the characters half way through. However, because of the unique story I'll bet it will hold most people's interest. The descriptions of the 'strange sightings' are wonderful. The reader never knows what's real and what's not real. Taking place in Israel makes this story even more fascinating.
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