Drood by Dan Simmons – Review

Drood: A Novel by Dan Simmons

Is this a gothic tale of suspense, an imaginative history of Dickens’s final days and his unfinished work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, an examination of the professional rivalry between two scribes, a look at the pitfalls of male/female relationships, an account of a drug addict’s descent into madness, or all of the above? It is difficult to pinpoint what Simmons was aiming for in writing Drood, a narrative in which the line between fiction and reality is deliberately blurred. To the author’s credit, he does capture the atmosphere of the Victorian era as well as the desperation that many writers must feel when they realize that they are only as good as their next work. The pressure to produce, to be true to one’s vision but also to please one’s audience, must be unbearably great. As a thriller, Drood is more bewildering than entertaining. It meanders along to an anticlimactic resolution that fails to reward the tenacious reader. The supernatural elements detract from rather than enhance a story that could have been just as fascinating had it focused on the genuine problems that both Dickens and Collins faced. Both men tried, not always successfully, to deal with troubling difficulties in their personal lives while maintaining their exalted position as first class writers.

via Dan Simmons : Drood : Book Review.