My Name Is Nathan Lucius
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
How far would you go for your best friend? If she begged you to, would you kill her?
Nathan Lucius, 31, is an ad salesman at a Cape Town newspaper. Disaffected, hard-drinking and plagued by blackouts, Nathan lives alone and has only one true friend, a woman named Madge. But Madge is dying slowly of cancer, and when she asks Nathan to end her pain, she sets off a shocking string of events.
A modern-day answer to Crime and Punishment, My Name Is Nathan Lucius is a taut and unforgiving exploration of the intersection of violence, trauma, social responsibility, and memory. Stylish, intense, and unforgettable, this glittering noir gem will appeal to readers of Irvine Welsh and Chuck Palahniuk as well as fans of Thomas Harris and Dennis Lehane.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Early in South African author Winkler's disturbing U.S. debut, 31-year-old Nathan Lucius, an ad salesman for a Cape Town newspaper, admits, "I don't dislike women. I just don't like what they can do to me." He adds, "I liked the taste of the dead lady who may or may not have been properly dead." Nathan's pervasive creepiness will make it impossible for most readers to identify with him, and that challenge only becomes more pronounced when his friend Madge Cartwright, an antique store owner with terminal cancer, asks him to end her life. After taking steps to concoct an alibi and frame an innocent store customer of hers, he strangles Madge with her scarf. Nathan is so emotionally dead that it's hard to accept that he was acting out of misguided empathy for Madge, and further violence only makes him more repulsive. If Winkler's goal was to present an unsympathetic woman-hater, he succeeded, but the unpleasantness of the plot and lead are overpowering. Only those with a taste for the darkest of noir will be gratified.
