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Publisher: Delirium Press |
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One night inside a small bar aptly named The Last Stop, the downtrodden and beaten regulars greet a stranger who possesses a strange rosewood box. The stranger calls it a spirit box, something Native Americans once used to trap the souls of their enemies within. As the bar patrons become overtly curious, the stranger opens the box...and so begins this suspenseful tale. Presenting a cast of small-town characters whose plights and personalities are immediately involving, Silva's outstanding short-length novel that sets these individuals against a force that saps both their realities and their lives, a force that is at once supernaturally inexplicable and yet ultimately at the core of human existence and motivations. ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE is a spectacular book which exposes the horrific lengths to which tender mercies will propel the human spirit, while managing to be a thrilling race-against-time for those victimized spirits cast aside by these ill-natured mercies.
As is much of his earlier work (THE DISAPPEARANCE, THE PRESENCE, etc.), Silva's new novella is firmly entrenched in the oft-missed tradition of character-driven tales told in a straight-forward, linear manner. Silva's unique talent to additionally give a Bradbury'esque nod to his characters infuse them with a clarity and sympathy rarely seen in today's genre fiction, making their struggles and horrors all the more vivid. Highly recommended.
-- Ron Clinton, USA
