Mysticus

Rating:
Summary: Vibrant and unusual
Review: In 1949 Ronald Shepard, the son of servants to a millionaire playboy living on a private island off the coast of South Carolina, meets Marilyn Monroe. This begins the child's movement from innocence to the eventual experience that results in an obsession with sex, power, greed and ambition that shapes the rest of his life.

In 2001 seventeen-year-old Cassandra DeRoy has been employed in the world's oldest profession for three years. A dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe, Cassie stands at a street corner one night when Ronald spots her. Remembering his encounter with Marilyn so many years ago, Ronald picks her up and takes her home. He proves to be the gentlest man she'd ever met.

In 2018 sixteen-year-old Ginger Todd faces the ugliest elements of her society. Disgusted with her past, Ginger sees no hope of improvement for her future. Adopted to people who don't understand her, Ginger finds herself pregnant and seeking answers to her identity in the journals of her alcoholic mother. For a brief moment, she realizes she had actually been valued, that her existence had not always been an inconvenience and an annoyance.

Three narrative flows gracefully intertwine in a powerful novel about love, sex and power. Randall Silvis' fine storytelling mesmerizes the reader, combining wonder, comedy and crassness in an incredibly moving epic that confronts our deepest natures. Light and dark likewise intertwine resulting in a profound revelation of pain and redemption. These vibrant characters enact our greatest desires and our greatest fears, yet touch our hearts and imaginations in ways that are moving and profound. Very highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A giddy, bawdy ride through the mysteries of the human mind.
Review: Mysticus follows the life and times of Ronald Shepard beginning as the nine-year-old child of servants to a millionaire playboy who lives on a private island off the coast of South Carolina and continuing through his adulthood. Ronald lives in a world of power, greed, ambition, and sex that spans from Marilyn Monroe (a goddess of seduction whose presence sweeps through the novel like an avalanche); to Cassandra DeRoy, a Sunset Boulevard teeny-bopper hooker (who bears a disconcerting resemblance to Marilyn); to sixteen-year-old Ginger Todd hitchhiking illegally across American in search of parents she has never known. Mysticus is a literary symphony of cosmic loneliness with a consummate mastery of prose revealing its profane and profound song of darkness and redemption. Author Randall Silvis offers the reader a giddy, bawdy ride through the mysteries of the human mind. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: There is no mystery about MYSTICUS!
Review: MYSTICUS is a love story, a science fiction story and a tale of loss,searching and ultimately redemption! Imagine Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving and Isaac Asimov collaborating to make their collective magnum opus. If you can, then you have MYSTICUS. The main character, Ronald Shephard, DDS, must deal with the infidelity of his mother, the murder of his presumed father, the love for his unborne brother, Ricardo, and his childhood infatuation with Maryilyn Monroe. The reader sees a torn life in the late fifties travel back in forth in time as his family comes together. MYSTICUS is the story a life that comes full circle through the continium of time. An excellent read that should not be missed by all those who love to read and those who love to love!

Rating:
Summary: There is no mystery about MYSTICUS!
Review: MYSTICUS is a love story, a science fiction story and a tale of loss,searching and ultimately redemption! Imagine Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving and Isaac Asimov collaborating to make their collective magnum opus. If you can, then you have MYSTICUS. The main character, Ronald Shephard, DDS, must deal with the infidelity of his mother, the murder of his presumed father, the love for his unborne brother, Ricardo, and his childhood infatuation with Maryilyn Monroe. The reader sees a torn life in the late fifties travel back in forth in time as his family comes together. MYSTICUS is the story a life that comes full circle through the continium of time. An excellent read that should not be missed by all those who love to read and those who love to love!

Rating:
Summary: Just In Time: In Praise Of Mysticus
Review: Mysticus, the latest novel from Randall Silvis, invites us to look at ourselves through what we value. The plot is revealed in three separate narrative lines, all different time segments in the life of Ronald Shepard and each focusing on significant characters who make their ways into or out of Shepard's life. In braiding three different times as he does, Silvis lets us see how past, present and future are in a way contemporaneous. Because of what we have in common culturally, we are not so different from members of other generations. Perhaps the feeling that the twenty-first century isn't so stunningly different as we thought it would be is partly explained by the treatment of time and events in the book. Other reviewers of Mysticus agree that what Silvis does with language is reason enough to read the book. Most impressive is the way language melds with theme. On any page, the reader can see an understanding of language which seems both professional and instinctive. Silvis's strength is his embrace of the nature of words and his faith in narrative. This explains the achievement of Mysticus, whose descriptions will leave readers wistfully longing for more, even while they feel well fed on a sensual feast of feeling and thought. Buy this book and savor the way language and theme are almost one in Mysticus. As the dawning of the third millennium prompts us to remember where we've been, it may be that you read Mysticus just in time.

Rating:
Summary: Just In Time: In Praise Of Mysticus
Review: Mysticus, the latest novel from Randall Silvis, invites us to look at ourselves through what we value. The plot is revealed in three separate narrative lines, all different time segments in the life of Ronald Shepard and each focusing on significant characters who make their ways into or out of Shepard's life. In braiding three different times as he does, Silvis lets us see how past, present and future are in a way contemporaneous. Because of what we have in common culturally, we are not so different from members of other generations. Perhaps the feeling that the twenty-first century isn't so stunningly different as we thought it would be is partly explained by the treatment of time and events in the book. Other reviewers of Mysticus agree that what Silvis does with language is reason enough to read the book. Most impressive is the way language melds with theme. On any page, the reader can see an understanding of language which seems both professional and instinctive. Silvis's strength is his embrace of the nature of words and his faith in narrative. This explains the achievement of Mysticus, whose descriptions will leave readers wistfully longing for more, even while they feel well fed on a sensual feast of feeling and thought. Buy this book and savor the way language and theme are almost one in Mysticus. As the dawning of the third millennium prompts us to remember where we've been, it may be that you read Mysticus just in time.

Rating:
Summary: Mystical "Mysticus"
Review: Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This is the Place and Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered

Mysticus is a new novel with the potential to be a classic--if it only were getting the attention it deseves.

Like most classics, Mysticus cannot be wrapped up and tied in a pretty bow. It is a bit mystery, a bit futurist, a bit literary, a bit fantasy, a bit mainstream, a bit historical, a bit contemporary and a lot compelling. The story lines are woven like threads in a tapestry; they intersect one another in imaginative ways.

Each story is told from the character's own point of view, carefully labeled and dated. Some of these "chapters" are only a few paragraphs long, some much longer, but all leave the reader wanting-needing--to learn more, to turn those pages as fast as she can.

This book is for the mystical, the political, the literary, and even the fantasy-lovers among us. There is no way that a reader will turn that last page and think "Mysticus" is like anything else she's read. It is daring and original. Randall Silvis takes chances with his writing and the result is exquisite-palpable and yes, mystical.

(Carolyn Howard-Johnson's first novel, This is the Place, has won eight awards. Her newly released Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remember has won three. Sona Ovasapyan, Student at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, says,"This author's words set me free.")