Rating: 
Summary: An Intelligent Page Turner
Review: I love a good page turner that doesn't insult your intelligence. Gray Matter is all that PLUS it is well written AND thought provoking.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought Provoking...
Review: This is a great book. It can be read on many levels and it asks questions that are facing society today in many subtle and not so subtle ways. If we are able to choose the sex of an unborn child or pick characteristics from a sperm bank, why not correct the itelligence of an average or below average child? Certainly, it is Gary Braver's (Goshgarian)best book to date. Any parent is able to relate to the concept of improving a child's skills or intelligence to supposedly improve their quality of life. Rachel and her husband Martin may be tempted to go to extremes, but parents often tend to do this very thing in less obvious ways. The guilt that Rachel feels about her son's condition magnifies any parent's subconscious guilt for any imperfection that they see their child possessing.
The super intelligent yet dysfunctional children (Brendan, Lucinda, Julian,Nicole) produced by the bizarre medical experiment reminded me of some extremely intelligent children and adults who have difficulty fitting into society through no real fault of their own. Can happiness and fulfillment be measured by intelligence? This question seemed to be an underlying theme throughout the book.
The major characters in the novel are believable and easy to relate to. Parents sacrifice their fortunes to "help" their children. The scientist (Malenko) is caught up in his desire to tamper with the natural scheme of things. The dedicated police officer (Zacharian) is willing to risk his career to solve a disturbing crime.
Braver's narrative flows smoothly involving the reading in every twist and turn of the plot. Dialogue is extremely well handled. He definitely has a way with words. Braver introduces several plot lines that eventuallly merge, culminating in an exiting suspense filled conclusion. This would definitely make an excellent movie. I highly recommend this novel!
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Read from Gary Braver
Review: Gary Braver's second novel, "Gray Matter" is the chilling portrait of an upscale urban community and the parents who will stop at nothing to see their children excel. When faced with their son Dylan's learning disability, Rachel and Martin Whitman turn to the mysterious Dr. Malenko who promises to enhance their son's IQ. But when the Whitman's learn the truth about the other 'enhanced' children, the struggle for Dylan's future begins."Gray Matter" looks at our obsession with raising perfect children and the lengths we will go to to achieve this goal. Braver's prose style shimmers with beauty and insight. He has written a Faust fable for our times and a great read any time.
Rating:
Summary: Ruined Reunion
Review: Gray Matter ruined my family reunion. I picked up a copy of Gray Matter to read on the plane on the way to Cleveland. I honestly could not put it down. While everyone was having fun, I was in a corner reading (and having fun). I found the book very disturbing at times and thought provoking. Could this really happen? Would people spend millions to "experiment" on their kid at the risk of another child? Braver makes the technical stuff real easy to understand. It's not boring or far-fetched but well researched. The characters are believable and well developed and you do not get lost in the "scene changes." The entire plot is easy to follow. This book must be read. But be warned, read it when nothing else is going on. Can't wait for Braver's next one.
Rating:
Summary: A Profound Journey
Review: Gray Matter takes you on a profound journey with Braver's sympathetic characters. There's universal appeal here. Every parent has moments when they wonder if their children could be "enhanced," whether or not they're learning disabled - whether through the use of tutors or in the extreme situation in Gray Matter, through brain surgery. I'm not a horror fan, but I love the way Braver draws you in and horrifies you. At several junctures, I found myself saying "Oh, no!" out loud (this was true with Elixir, Braver's earlier book, also excellent). While most of the brain altered kids are pretty scary to comtemplate, Brendan, a brain-altered teenager, is the exception and my favorite character. He's a fascinating young man whose mind doesn't function normally, and Braver does a superb job of letting you share his world. Gray Matter is an easy read and totally accessible even though it's 400 pages of thought-provoking intelligent material. That's Braver's great strength and what makes his books stay with you after you finish them. The writing and characterization is great and the plots are totally unique and close enough to reality to have profound implications. My last thought: He has some powerful descriptive passages,and I love the way he brings the Massachusetts setting to life, from the fictional wealthy suburb of Hawthorne to his description of Cambridge's Mass Ave: "With Harvard at one end and MIT at the other end, Mass Ave was like a giant filament blazing with the greatest concentration of mind power in the world." His use of language, for example, the way he uses the word "Incandescent", will draw you in and stay with you.
Rating:
Summary: My first letter of commendation
Review: Saturday, October 12, 2002 This morning I finished reading Gray Matter. True, it did not have any character with whom I can identify with one hundred percent. That is, no character shares my understanding that it is impossible for a human being to love a human being. In fact Rachel Whitman, one of the main characters, insists she loves that extraordinary character who is her six-year-old son, Dylan. Nor does the author, Gary Braver, make it clear that he understands marriage to be an irrational act of legally sanctioned bondage (which is exactly what I understand it to be). Indeed the story concludes...well, I'm not going to spoil the ending. I have read hundreds of novels, but I have never written to an author with a letter of commendation. For two reasons. One: except for the last few years, I had no address to write to; now I have access to the Internet. Two: with maybe a few exceptions, no author has deserved such commendation. This morning, despite Mr. Braver's failure to clearly agree with those two important understandings of mine, I emailed him a letter of commendation because I was inordinately pleased with Gray Matter. I did not expect a reply. I did not even want one. I merely wanted to encourage him to keep up the good work. So I was surprised when I got a reply, and I am honored to comply with Mr. Braver's request that I submit a review to amazon.com. Here are the novel's elements that pleased me:
1. The theme ventures just beyond the cutting edge of science, giving the book a light flavor of science fiction, while maintaining firm ground in our contemporary world.
2. The style is polished. The author gives background detail, but he avoids an obsession with it. His style is streamlined, easy to read, and fast-paced. Gray Matter is not a soporific. There's plenty of dialog, there's some good action, and the atmosphere is intense.
3. Mr. Braver doesn't try to ram down my throat any personal dogma to the effect that marriage is right. The book ends with the reader free to choose. In my email I told Mr. Braver, "If your next novel includes all of the above elements, I daresay I will read it."
Rating:
Summary: A librarian's comment
Review: I especially like the way Gary involves; towns, institutions, persons(titles of actual people living and working in the Boston area), places and things found in Boston, Massachusetts and suburbs. Gary's talent for using the correct chemical, technical and medical terms to describe the action-easily draws one into the contorted plot. As a result the story line, so effectively presented becomes plausible. HORRORS !!
Rating:
Summary: may be the medical thriller of the year
Review: In Hawthorne, Massachusetts Rachel and Martin Whitman live good lives as expected of a successful CEO. They are the "Jones" that the John and Jane Does try to emulate with one exception, their son Dylan suffers from learning disabilities that make tasks most people take for granted quite difficult to accomplish. Rachel feels guilt for her child's condition because in college she used an LSD-like substance that obviously damaged her offspring. Like most parents, Rachel will do anything to improve her son's lifestyle though Dylan is a contented boy. When her neighbor implies that an experimental procedure could probably enhance Dylan's intelligence capacity, Rachel desperately leaps at this hope. As Rachel uncovers information about the process, she becomes concerned with the "brains" she meets as they seem unhappy and lack passion though filled with Solomon like intelligence. She faces the moral dilemma between intelligence vs. happiness even as Detective Greg Zakarian investigates the disappearances of several children that intersect with Rachel's path. As the mother of a learning disability child, this reviewer fully appreciates how Rachel feels about her son. The fast-paced novel will fascinate and frighten the audience, as fans will empathize with Rachel's dilemma that turns the tale into more than just another chiller; this story line will hit the gut. Gary Braver offers no easy ELIXIR, but fans of medical thrillers will want to read what may prove to be the sub-genre's top book of the year. However, be aware that if you have a situation similar to Rachel, consider whether you really want to start this novel because GRAY MATTER will haunt you afterward as few books will. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Gray Matter
Review: Gray Matter is the best of Gary Bravers efforts to date.It successfully captures the interest of the reader from merly reacing the preface. There is a unique moral to the story which in my opinion addresses a problem that is not mentioned enough in society. In addition to being facinating to read, the book should also be considered being produced as a movie.
Rating:
Summary: A thrilling story equal to Crichton, Preston and Childs
Review: In an age when biotechnology seems to be on the verge of offering prospective parents every possible option, Gary Braver (pen name for Northeastern University English Professor Gary Goshgarian) has written a novel about the aftermath of choice. Like its predecessor, ELIXIR, GRAY MATTER treads on ground fraught with ethical dilemma in the face of overwhelming temptation. Rachel Whitman and her husband live in a tony suburb of Boston. Thanks to Mr. Whitman's success and business acumen, they appear to have it all, including a beautiful little boy named Dylan who sings like an angel. Living in a town where the expression "keeping up with the Joneses" was born, Rachel wants the best for her family. Affluence can often breed a sense of entitlement, and GRAY MATTER more than subtly touches on this cause and effect. Daily, she sees her son, who has slight learning disabilities, struggling with the smallest of tasks in comparison to the genius children he is surrounded by in his exclusive computer science camp and private school. Plagued by decisions she made as a youth to experiment with a popular sex drug, she fears that she is the cause of her son's inferior capabilities and, like any parent who would do all for a child, she seeks alternatives to improve his brain power. A kindly neighbor --- and mother of a genius child --- hints at a procedure that could help slow, innocent Dylan, and Rachel becomes hooked on learning more. She and her husband embroil themselves in a quest to find out about the "enhancement" that can double their child's IQ for a small fortune. There's something troubling --- mysterious --- about the good doctor who professes to have the miracle key to unlock Dylan's potential, and something equally troubling about the legions of brainiacs he has created, but Rachel can't quite put her finger on it. When detective Greg Zakarian, obsessed with the past murder of a young boy, starts to investigate the recent disappearances of several bright but poor children, the town's secret unfolds quickly and with gruesome, unimaginable consequences. GRAY MATTER trespasses into the frightening arena of possibility, made all the more frightening by the element of realism brought to the story by Braver's expert research and use of blood-curdling medical details. We live in a world of ever-increasingly complex and tempting options. Cloning, stem cell research, the human genome project --- these and other scientific breakthroughs open up a whole new world of possibilities, controversial possibilities that were once solely the realm of science fiction. Braver takes a fictional look at the dark side of scientific advancement and asks if the tremendous cost is truly worth the coveted prize for merely a select few. Along the way, Braver gives us a thrilling story equal to the best work of Michael Crichton or Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs. --- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara for Bookreporter.com
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