Ideal Genuine Man

by Don Robertson

Book Overview

Ideal, Genuine Man, The, by Robertson, Don This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451158016
• ISBN13: 9780451158017
• Release Date: February 1989
• Publisher: Signet Book
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Powerful and raw

I too bought the book because Stephen King not only recommended it but actually published it through his Philtrum press. King's recommendations (e.g., John MacDonald, Richard Matheson) are always to my taste, and Don Robertson may be the best of the bunch. One interesting feature is that he has many multi-page chapters that are a single long paragraph. Normally, long paragraphs make writing hard to read, but Robertson successfully uses this unconventional style to add drama and breathless urgency to his writing.

Don Robertson is my new literary hero

I, too, first became acquainted with Don Robertson via a second-hand bookstore bargain... and I admit I only picked it up because it had a foreword by Stephen King. Once I got past King's effusive praise and guarantee that I would "never read a book like this. Never." I became totally hooked on Don Robertson. This book really IS like nothing I've ever read. His characters are dowdy and dumpy and troubled and fat and maybe not the most dazzlingly brilliant people you could read about, but who wants to do that? This book stayed in the back of my mind for months. I started reading all of Robertson's books in order, and while they differ widely in plot, setting, point of view etc., his basic techinique is usually there: there are good people and bad people and the good people suffer but the bad people get theirs in the end. Robertson writes a morality play but because he doesn't make his good people TOO virtuous, you are always surprised by what happens. The conclusion to The Ideal, Genuine Man was completely believable and true to life, although certainly extremely unsettling. In short, I can't say enough about this brilliant and talented man, and I must wonder as well: why are these books out of print? You can still get copies of A Confederacy of Dunces and Catcher in the Rye. Don Robertson's work should be required reading in all Freshman Lit. classes! P.S. I loathe having to read a 40 year old library book with 40 year old drips and stains and suspicious blots on them. Ick.