The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit
-
-
4.3 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Against the wishes of his family, David, a college student, takes a summer job at a run-down family resort in a dying English town. It was at this very resort that David's biological father died fifteen years earlier. But something undeniable has called David there, a deeper otherworldliness that lies beneath the surface of what we see. And as David joins an eclectic group of staffers, strange occurrences take hold, including the vision of a lonely, blue-suited man wandering the town.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of the latest novel from Joyce (Some Kind of Fairy Tale), a coming-of-age story set in the summer of 1976, college student David Barwise arrives in Skegness, a gritty English seaside holiday resort, looking for a job. Although his decision is prompted partly by a desire to avoid working for his stepfather, David also wants to revisit the beach where, when he was three years old, he witnessed his father die of a heart attack. He has long suspected that his family has never told him the full story. After landing a job at the resort, David immerses himself in the hardscrabble world of carnies, fortune-tellers, and worn-out comedians. His kindness and humility enable him to make friends quickly, including with, to everyone's surprise, the volatile, anti-immigrant, English nationalist Colin. But when David proves unable to refuse the advances of Colin's wife, Terri, the resulting tension is palpable. Precisely because Joyce is a master of dialogue and character, the artificial plot complications provided by the mystery of David's unresolved past feel unnecessary, but, otherwise, his sweltering summer escapades make for a terrific and absorbing read.
