Great new book club book

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Just now out in paperback, The Angel’s Game was quite possibly my favorite book of 2009. I loved loved LOVED Shadow of the Wind because it had everything I like in a novel: history, romance, intrigue, fantasy all rolled into one. The Angel’s Game had all that again and in a more concise package. (Even though I loved Shadow of the Wind, I did think it got a little tubby in the middle and could have used an editor with a hacksaw there.)

The Angel’s Game follows a young Barcelona writer with no family, David Marti´n, who writes pulp fiction for a pair of deliciously crooked editors. The opening paragraph:

“A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that will surely outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.”

He writes because he needs to earn a living, because he is vain, because he wants to be immortal – as he knows writers can be. His editors exploit his fear and downplay his talent (I loved them as villains), until one day he is contacted by a mysterious publisher who wants to have him write The Book that will make him immortal.

The Angel’s Game explores themes of obsessive love, vanity, fear, religion (or the lack thereof), reality and fantasy, and the power of story – all hot buttons for me (well, maybe not the obsessive love part). Woven within are a mystery, characters both funny and tragic, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and an obvious color palette.

This is going to be a TERRIFIC book club book. And, because the ending is ambiguous (a source of frustration for some readers), book clubs will be talking (arguing?) beyond the meeting time. Don’t miss it!

-Janet