Would you sacrifice your soul?
Rating:
4 / 5
This is a very different take on the idea of just how far a mother would go to save her child from a certain death. Just what would you be willing to do? Would you "sell your soul" so to speak? Dinah is a woman who seems to have everything going for her, everything that is except a healthy child. During an endless hospital stay with her son she is "visited" by a ghost who claims to be the spirit of a long forgotten lover. The ghost taunts and teases forcing Dinah to revisit her past and cast doubt on her future. The ghost makes the ultimate offer, possession of Dinah for the saving of Elijah. This is a heart wrenching yet oddly funny tale about love, devotion, forgiveness and acceptance. It's well worth your time to read.
A Gripping Imaginative Different Kind Of Story
Rating:
5 / 5
A thoroughly, enjoyable, can't-put-down kind of book. This story is so very different than anything I've ever read. The basic undertone of this story is a mother's love for her child. Elijah is deathly ill and knocking at death's door when his mother, Dinah, makes a "deal" with a ghost to save her son. This ghost is actually a demon and makes life difficult for Dinah, even unbearable at times. There are a lot of deep lessons in this book, and most of them are the type that none of us like to face; like the acceptance of the eventual death of a young son. Dinah fights that event and never has peace until she does accept that her son is not going to live a long, beneficial, and normally healthy life. The trauma of a fatal illness and the way it effects a marriage is another scene played out in this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone. This is definitely a page turner and one of the best books I've read. This is a very different kind of story. I truely think it would be a great movie because of the story angles and because it is very unique and imaginative. Excellent!!
A TOWERING ACHIEVEMENT OF DEPTH AND COMPLEXITY
Rating:
5 / 5
There's a depth and complexity to this electrifying tale that is extraordinary. Superficial stories about the death of a child are such a common clich�d surefire staple of movie-of-the week tear-jerkers that it is both remarkable and stunning to see someone explore loss on such deeper levels of sensitivity and insight. By the time you finish this work, you'll feel like you've been on an exhilarating journey-- it is that rare that you read something that makes you look at things in ways you didn't anticipate and go in directions you didn't expect to take. It is true that Elie Wiesel said that today literature is exhausted. That's why when you come across something so peerless and energizing as Saving Elijah, it is not just rare--it is an event. In a compelling bit of story-telling, the book starts out exploring how the impending loss of a child strikes the protagonist Dinah Rosenberg Galligan in every core of her existence, and not just by the obvious overwhelming grief and sadness, as she flails about drowning in helplessness. Bit by bit, in fits and starts, it begins to wreck her marriage, her career, her friendships. For example, it's unusual that a book investigates how a child's illness can bring together and then push apart a husband and wife. It does this with such a beautifully raw honesty, you almost feel like you should look away, but you can't. That's what is so remarkable about this book; it keeps looking at things from angles you're not assuming. Still, it moves even beyond this onto a spiritual plane. One of the things I liked about the book was that it was exquisitely written by the prose stylist Fran Dorf with a rhythm and cadence all its own, alternatively slowing down and then speeding up, but always building and building. The plot concerns the Faustian bargain Dinah makes with a demon from out of her past. He will intercede with death on behalf of her son if she will give herself to him. The fact that she agrees tells you more than you ever need to know about a mother's love and courage for her child. But don't for a minute think that this is a supernatural tale on the level of a Stephen King book or even those incredible otherworldly/sexual yarns of Isaac Bashevis Singer. More important than this actual demon, Dinah must boldly confront and take on the "ghosts" of her past which have long haunted her and weighed her down. Notably, this is not a depressing or pessimistic work. Saving Elijah is an optimistic meditation on the doggedness of the human spirit. It is ultimately a towering book about redemption and hope.
|