{"id":2692,"date":"2020-08-14T06:25:40","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T13:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2692"},"modified":"2020-08-14T06:25:40","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T13:25:40","slug":"a-story-for-our-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2692","title":{"rendered":"A story for our times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve enjoyed many of Chris Bohjalian’s books, some more than others. This one sounds especially \u2014 even oddly \u2014 timely, and pretty scary. I’m not sure I want to read it, but I’ll pay attention to what Bob Moyer has to say.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer<\/p>\n

RED LOTUS. By Chris Bohjalian. Doubleday. 367 pages. $27.95<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>You might not want to read this nail biter of a novel<\/p>\n

You might be weary of hearing about disease spread from animals to humans, creating a pandemic.<\/p>\n

You might be revolted by the habits and hordes of rats that live under and around us, devouring everything, including each other.<\/p>\n

You might get queasy at being privy to the private thoughts of a cutter, a person who hurts themselves.\u00a0The doctor at the heart of this novel takes to those returning thoughts when an apparent accident kills her boyfriend while they are on a trip to Vietnam.<\/p>\n

You might, however, relish a rollercoaster of revelations, well-researched details and well developed characters that cascade out of this book.\u00a0When the emergency room doctor returns to New York, she learns what she suspected \u2014 that accident was no accident.\u00a0 Her boyfriend was lying to her, and she sets off to find out how much and why.\u00a0Each step she takes leads her deeper into danger, and adds a bit of dread to the reader\u2019s stomach.\u00a0The author is expert at developing narrative tension, switching between points of view, including an italicized commentator who is not revealed to the very end.\u00a0The twists and turns of Chris Bohjalian\u2019s prose and plot make for a taut, scary read.<\/p>\n

You might enjoy it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve enjoyed many of Chris Bohjalian’s books, some more than others. This one sounds especially \u2014 even oddly \u2014 timely, and pretty scary. I’m not sure I want to read it, but I’ll pay attention to what Bob Moyer has to say. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer RED LOTUS. By Chris Bohjalian. Doubleday. 367 pages. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,14],"tags":[477,136,1165,1164],"class_list":["post-2692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary-literary-fiction","category-thriller-suspense","tag-chris-bohjalian","tag-contemporary-fiction","tag-pandemic-fiction","tag-the-red-lotus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2694,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions\/2694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}