Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Children’s, Teenage & Educational

FELL OF DARK

Patrick Downes

Written in searing prose, this is the story of two mentally ill boys, Erik, who believes he's a saint, and Thorn, who believes he's a demon. As their minds devolve into hallucinations, their worlds intersect, culminating in a final stand-off in a school playground where one boy has brought an automatic weapon and is intent on killing the children in the school, and the other vows to stop him, even if it means sacrificing himself.

This debut novel offers a raw, insightful look at mental illness and the forces that compel us to act against our will. Even more so, it captivates and dares us to look away, knowing full well we can't. Thorn hears voices—Guardians, Sawmen, finally the Architect. He needs them. He fights them. They push him to obey. Erik and Thorn... Strangers at the start, they are set on a collision course toward one another—a course that neither one of them could ever have predicted. And it’s possible that only one will survive. Fell of Dark delivers a raw, honest portrait of two deeply troubled minds and the forces that compel us to act sometimes against our will. In a single, terrifying moment, Erik and Thorn reach their destiny. And we can’t look away. As the first starred reviews attest, the author does a masterful job of showing us Erik’s and Thorn’s interior worlds through gorgeously written prose. He constructs the boys’ distinct voices in intense, often poetically lyrical passages that powerfully contrast with the personal violence the boys describe. Patrick Downes was raised in New York City and now splits his time between Vermont and Toronto, Canada. This is his first novel.

Available products
Book Published 2015-05-12 by Philomel Books

Comments

Whether I’m reading books for children or adults, I’m always seeking unconventional narratives that work, despite the ‘rules’ they might break. In the case of YA books, I particularly respect writers who give their young readers enough credit to embrace complex storytelling. Fell of Dark is ostensibly a book about madness and grief, but it eschews the need for a standard plot or character development, relying more on symbolism and ambrosial language than relatable protagonists.

A stunning debut novel that offers sophisticated readers a glimpse into the psychological disintegrations of two distinct characters.

A masterwork of astonishing authority and beauty.

Here is a book built of darkness and gleam, of raw emotion and shattering poetry, of harrowing compulsions and zero compromise. Patrick Downes possesses blazing, beautiful, terrifying talent.

Downes’s gorgeous prose delineates [the characters] moment-by-moment interior states, making few concessions to the consensual definition of reality…. [W]hether in an image or in a confused, despairing reaction to an incomprehensible world,... Downes’s vision will connect into an epiphany.

Readers willing to sink into the depths of two unstrung teens and their frantic individual struggles to understand the cruelties and redemptions of the universe will be rewarded by this disarming, thought-provoking, and entrancing story.