Still Life with June

By Darren Greer

Book Overview

A disaffected writer gets caught in the morass of complicated human relationships when he appropriates the life of a former patient and befriends his mentally challenged sister.

The people in gay bars on Christmas Day are so desperate for basic human contact that they'd go home with a Doc Marten shoe if it made a move, and maybe even if it didn't.

So begins the story of Cameron Dodds, a disenfranchised writer who visits gay bars on Christmas and works at a Salvation Army Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center in order to steal the stories of the people he meets there. But when Cameron finds a patient hanged in the utilities closet, his infatuation with other people's stories becomes an obsession. Assuming the man's identity, Cameron seeks out and forges a relationship with the victim's mentally challenged sister, who lives in a home uptown. As Cameron becomes more involved in the woman's life, he begins to discover truths that will challenge him to the very core of his existence.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312335113
• ISBN13: 9780312335113
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

This book is completely worth the read.

I purchased this book over the summer and at first was anxious to read it, but once I actually had time to sit down and read it I kept putting it off. I think the back description turned me off a bit. I thought it might have turned out to be cliche or a "shocker" book, a book that only focuses on shocking the reader. Once I got into the story, however, I couldn't put it down. And once I finished it, Greer's characters and theories stuck in my head. This is definately a book you should consider.

Highly recommended

I received this book as a gift. Based on the description on the back, I wasn't sure what to expect. The book was easy to get into, and grew on me the more I read it. I really enjoyed it, and the characters stayed with me after I finished the book. I highly recommend this book!

Haunting and exquisite

Still Life with June is a rare and haunting novel that deserves to be read at least twice. Stylistically, Still Life is brilliant, juxtaposing textual fragments written in distinctly different voices. Greer achieves ambiguity through calculated precision as his plot and characterization shift between realities. The text is often confessional, with the protagonist sharing everything from seemingly-insignificant details to the most intimate revelations. The result is a protagonist so realistic that I sometimes forgot he was fictional, feeling implicated by my own voyeuristic presence. Grafting beauty onto pain, Greer creates a world as enticing as it is disturbing. Intelligent, hilarious and profound, Still Life is a novel to savor.

Original and Arresting

This is one of the best novels I have read in years. It is utterly original, with something unexpected happening on practically every page. The author has written it in a fully unusual style, with short chapters, sometimes only a sentence or two, stories within stories, and lists. And the ending is terrific. Buy this book. You won't regret it.

Hey, you...

Yes, you, person who is wondering if you want to read this book, or person who has read it and is now in the process of reviewing it (did you like it?), don't hesitate on this one. It's a very compelling read. The main character comes to life. He's real. He's honest. I felt like him. I wonder if Darren Greer wrote this as semi-autobiographical. The main character seemed to be too real to be fictional, though. But that's okay. I really enjoyed seeing everything through his eyes, considering that both of us are gay writers. And the whole idea of everyone either knowing or not knowing they were a loser humored me. It's been at least an hour since I finished the book. I'm thinking about it. When I think about a book after it's done, that means it's good, even excellent. It hit me on some kind of metaphysical level.