Mar 21, 2008

Dark secrets revealed ... slowly

By Terri Schlichenmeyer / Book Reviewer

"Now You See Him" by Eli Gottlieb
William Morrow
$23, 262 pages

There comes a time in everyone's life when a friend is lost.

Not the kind of loss when words cause angry foot-stomping and slamming doors, but the kind of loss when funerals are held and there's a friend-shaped hole in your heart forever.

In the new novel, "Now You See Him" by Eli Gottlieb, a man loses his childhood friend in the most violent of ways. But the death doesn't tip his world upside down nearly as much as the other losses he experiences.

Rob Castor was a wunderkind. Castor, the author of a book that shot to the top of the charts, enjoyed the media frenzy that accompanies a stellar new writer. But when it was time for book number two, Rob could barely pick up a pen. Writer's block stymied him, and made his mood as dark as his stories. When Rob's cool-as-ice girlfriend, Kate, cheated on him, Rob went off the deep end.

Nick Framingham and Rob were best friends since they were 10 years old, and Rob's actions shock Nick to the core. Rob was like a brother to Nick. He was smarter, more at ease with girls, more confident. Summertime with Rob and Rob's sister, Belinda, were the happiest memories Nick had.

Over the years, Belinda drifted in and out of Nick's life. Rob became famous and Nick got married. Now Rob is gone, Belinda is back in town and Nick can't seem to pull himself together. His marriage, always fragile, starts to teeter. Nick loves Lucy, but he feels distant to her. Belinda, though ... Belinda understands.

And while Nick's remembering his childhood and his friendship with his neighbors-turned-best-friends, he remembers something else. His older brother, Patrick, was their parents' favorite. It was so obvious. The boring old Framinghams. Bland as white bread, they now were trying on new personas as swinging seniors in a retirement community. Nick is glad they moved a thousand miles away.

And then Rob's mother calls. Boozy, she says she has "a secret" for Nick. But it's nothing compared to the secret Nick carries within himself.

"Now You See Him" is a beautiful book filled with the most lyrical sentences and poetry-like phrases you'll ever read in fiction. The characters are complex, the scenarios are real, the feelings are raw.

But I just wasn't crazy about this novel.

Author Eli Gottlieb takes for-ev-er to get to the point of this story, which makes for some pretty tedious reading. Nick is, at first, a sympathetic person, but he quickly becomes not-so-nice and progresses into becoming someone you don't want to know. He's troubled for a reason, but the reason doesn't present itself until the last pages of the book. That wouldn't be so bad, if the first 200-plus pages weren't so much blah, blah, blah.

If you want to read a novel with gorgeous turn-of-phrase and don't mind the slowness, pick up a copy of "Now You See Him." If you want a more action-packed, engaging novel, though, reading this one is a loss of good time.