Staff Pick
What if Tom Ripley wanted nothing more than to be an acclaimed writer? Meet Maurice Swift. He's a charmer who will steal a story or take a life without a care. Boyne beautifully captures Swift's rise and fall with compelling multiple narrations. I especially loved Maurice's run-in with a fictional Gore Vidal. Vidal's luxurious vitriol just drips from the page. It's a chiller and Maurice is a character you won't soon forget. Recommended By Kathi K., Powells.com
Maurice Swift: he is not so much a man as he is a mirror, a narcissist with all the depth of a reflection. Too ambitious to toil away in obscurity, he longs to be a literary giant. Unfortunately, his writing skills are outpaced by his genius for manipulation. So he gets creative, exploiting the people who are drawn in by his charm and his beauty. Once he knows what they want, he presents himself as a facsimile of their innermost desires, just until he gets what he needs. And it works — even when he loses, he wins. In Maurice, Boyne has created a touchstone, the kind of character whose name becomes shorthand for their very nature. Meticulously constructed and brilliantly written, A Ladder to the Sky is a darkly gratifying exercise in schadenfreude! Recommended By Lauren P., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent — but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own.
Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful — but desperately lonely — older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel.
Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall…
Sweeping across the late 20th century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso.
Review
“Boyne’s fast-paced, white-knuckle plot, accompanied by delightfully sardonic commentary on the ego, insecurities, and pitfalls of those involved in the literary world, makes for a truly engrossing experience.” Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
“Take Meg Wolitzer’s novel (now also a film) called The Wife, about a brazen case of literary ghostwriting, and cross it with Patricia Highsmith’s classic Ripley stories about a suave psychopath, and you’ve got something of the crooked charisma of John Boyne’s new novel, A Ladder to the Sky....Maliciously witty, erudite, and ingeniously constructed, A Ladder to the Sky explores the cold outer limits of ambition.” NPR
Review
“A Ladder to the Sky is clever, chilling and beautifully paced; a study of inner corrosion that Patricia Highsmith herself could not have done better...wickedly astute.” The Times (London)
Synopsis
"A satire of writerly ambition wrapped in a psychological thriller . . . An homage to Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, but its execution is entirely Boyne's own."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn't have is talent--but he's not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don't need to be his own.
Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful - but desperately lonely - older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice's first novel.
Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall. . . .
Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso.
Praise for A Ladder to the Sky
"Boyne's mastery of perspective, last seen in The Heart's Invisible Furies, works beautifully here. . . . Boyne understands that it's far more interesting and satisfying for a reader to see that narcissist in action than to be told a catchall phrase. Each step Maurice Swift takes skyward reveals a new layer of calumny he's willing to engage in, and the desperation behind it . . . so dark it seems almost impossible to enjoy reading A Ladder to the Sky as much as you definitely will enjoy reading it."--NPR
"Delicious . . . spins out over several decades with thrilling unpredictability, following Maurice as he masters the art of co-opting the stories of others in increasingly dubious ways. And while the book reads as a thriller with a body count that would make Highsmith proud, it is also an exploration of morality and art: Where is the line between inspiration and thievery? To whom does a story belong?"--Vanity Fair
About the Author
John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, five for younger readers and a collection of short stories. His 2006 novel The Boy In the Striped Pajamas sold nine million copies worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, theatre, ballet and opera. John has won three Irish Book Awards and many other international literary awards and his novels are published in over 50 languages. He lives in Dublin.
John Boyne on PowellsBooks.Blog
John Boyne has enjoyed a successful writing career that began in his early 20s, and now, nearly 20 years later, boasts 11 adult novels and 5 young adult novels, most notably
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It is perhaps this breadth of experience that inspired him to turn a black mirror on ambition and the publishing world...
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