Wait Until Twilight

By Sang Pak

A hauntingly strange and powerfully affecting debut novel that heralds the arrival of a unique and captivating literary voice, Sang Pak's Wait Until Twilight is a coming-of-age story that explores the complex darkness infecting a damaged psyche in a small Southern town.

Not long after his own mother's death, sixteen-year-old Samuel discovers a set of deformed triplets hidden behind closed doors in his sleepy Georgia community. The babies--whose shut-in mother believes they were immaculately conceived and whose menacing brother is a constant threat--take control of Samuel's every waking and sleeping thought. His only escape, he realizes, will be to save the monster children. But to do so, he must rein in his darkest impulses as he undergoes a profound transformation from motherless boy to self-defined man--because sometimes the most terrible monsters are those that live inside us all.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061732958
• ISBN13: 9780061732959
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

An excellent first novel with many levels and gripping drama

This novel came to me highly recommended by someone whose opinion I trust. Rarely if ever do I read works by authors I don't know, but in this instance I am extremely grateful to have read this extraordinary first novel by Sang Pak. I have never posted a review here before, but this is something that I feel quite strongly about and I think it would appeal to many people who might not be aware of its existence. Wait Until Twilight is equal parts coming of age drama and southern gothic novel. On the surface, it is the story of a young man in a small southern town who witnesses something deeply disturbing that has a profound impact on his psyche. It is ,however, MUCH deeper than that. Rather than rehash the plot, I just want to give my impressions of the book because it hit home with me on both an intellectual and very primal level. Samuel, the novel's protagonist, sees something horrific while snooping around someone's home-an extremely deformed infant that both repulses and fascinates him. Through an unlucky turn of events, the inhabitants of the home find him and he comes face to face with the child's mother and her twisted, sadistic son. The psychotic son is in many ways a reflection of the darkness within Samuel and indeed within all of us. He is forced to come to terms with the fact that he himself is capable of extremely violent behavior that he never would have dreamed possible. Clearly Pak's background in psychology has had a great impact on his writing, because his character development is spot- on. Being a southerner myself, it is also quite clear that he has a profound understanding of the mentality of small town people as well. He somehow manages to function as both an outsider and an insider in this subject matter. I hope that I do not give the impression that this is some overdone drama.-the prose is concise and clean enough that the reader can decide for themselves if they wish to enjoy the book as the outstanding novel that it is or they may seek to dig a bit deeper. In either case they will be extremely pleased with the result.

Wait Until Twilight

The story is about a young man by the name of Samuel who comes across a very strange family. There's the shut in mother and her three deformed triplets and the absolutely insane son, Daryl. Samuel becomes strangely disgusted and obsessed with the triplets and the insane son, Daryl, gets obsessed with Samuel. All the while Samuel is processing the loss of his mother. From this emerges a wild and surreal story written in the most matter of fact way. The key for me was that I fell in love with the Samuel quickly and from then on I wanted to see what happened and many things do happen. Whether it's a run in with some crazy bikers at a field party or a nightmare moment at the carnival or breaking out of school suspension everything has a tension to it and that connects back to the crazy family and his dead mother. Then there are occasional bursts of intense violence and darkness. Especially the ones with Daryl, who sometimes really made it hard to continue reading. This character was truly dark and scary. But the whole thing revolves around Samuel and his slow transformation. I will say the imagery is strong and the book seemed very cinematic. A film version of this book would be very very interesting indeed.

Coming of Age Can Be Creepy

Finally--a well-written, engaging, thought-provoking and imaginative Southern gothic! It's been awhile since I sat down to read a book and got through the entire novel without skipping a single line. Wait Until Twilight by Sang Park is easily one of the best coming-of-age novels I've read all year. Set in the small Southern town of Sugweepo, Georgia, this poignant story about a sixteen-year-old boy's internal struggle to do the right thing is sure to charm readers. Samuel's narrative is a well-crafted, introspective look at his life a year after his mother's tragic death to cancer when he is struggling with adulthood and the choices that will define his life. The story opens with Samuel and his friend David on their way to film a mother and her three deformed triplets for a school project. Mrs. Greenan claims her babies are the product of immaculate conception, and their birth defects simultaneously frighten and fascinate Samuel so deeply that he becomes physically ill. Following this strange visit, Samuel quickly becomes obsessed with thoughts about the babies and their abnormalities. On his next visit, Samuel is nearly strangled to death on the porch by an unseen assailant. A third, illegal visit brings him into contact with the triplets' violent older brother Daryl, and this terrifying encounter convinces Samuel that the triples are in grave danger for their lives. Samuel finds himself unwittingly thrust into the position of savior, both to himself and the three babies, but will he make the right choice, or will circumstances--and fear--force the choice for him? This story is a fresh, fast-paced read at only 229 pages. The first-person narratiion makes it easy to delve into Samuel's world, and the characters are well-constructed with engaging dialogue. I probably would have read the book straight through if not for the fact that it was started on the bus ride to work. I highly recommend it to everyone, and look forward to future novels by Sang Park.

Excellent Novel, Brilliant

**Review Part One: Coming-of-age and Much, Much More** Sang Pak's "Wait Until Twilight" is a coming-of-age story, and it is much more. It is also, in part, a "surrealist" narrative of coming-to-self-understanding. That is, the story reflects a complex set of psychological processes, of which the main character is largely unconscious at the beginning of the novel, but which are outwardly enacted by and gradually understood by the main character. Sang Pak's development and integration of these two genres -- a moving coming-of-age story and an intricate, surrealist process of self-understanding -- is quite ingenious and is executed with stunning brilliance. Another excellent example of the latter genre is Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club." "Wait Until Twilight," however, offers something quite different than a multiple-personality plot-twist as a strategy for narrating and explaining the development of its characters and plot. In a key sequence (pp. 185-189), we find Samuel Polk, the novel's 16-year-old main character, sitting in on a college psychology class for his older brother, and we learn about a female psychologist and novelist who wrote "dark fairy tales" to illustrate her views on archetypal processes of psychological development. "Wait Until Twilight" is precisely this sort "dark fairy tale," characterized by the unfolding of psychological conflicts and resolutions. "Wait Until Twilight" achieves a fine balance here: it explains the archetypal psychology at work in Samuel just enough to enable the reader put the psychological puzzle pieces of Samuel's story together; yet it refrains from psychological explanation enough to leave the fitting-together of the puzzle pieces open to interpretation. To be clear, Pak does not use Samuel's coming-of-age story to expound some psychological theory that Pak has developed: rather, these bits of pieces psychology serve as a self-reflexive mode of character and plot exposition that Pak folds neatly into the novel itself. For more spoiler-free general comments, see "Review Part Two" below. **Summary Part One: Basic Plot Details** (No major spoilers) At the very beginning of the story, we learn in passing that Samuel Polk's mother died a year before the novel begins. 16-year-old Samuel says he's over it. Samuel and his friend are on their way to see three grossly disfigured babies (siblings) that Samuel might use for a video assignment. Samuel finds the babies viscerally repugnant, and drops the idea of using them for his video. Yet, he develops a "sick curiosity" about the babies, voyeuristically wanting to see them again -- just to look at them. And he's reminded of them at every turn: his thoughts obsessively find a way back to think about the babies. However, Samuel's "sick curiosity" is complex and ambivalent, and it psychologically mirrors the difference between the babies' mother and their twenty-something, "normal" brother, Daryl. On the one hand, the mother is disgusted by Sa

A Real Gem

I picked up this up at the local borders because of the cover and after reading the first chapter I bought it. The story revolves around a high school boy, Samuel, who comes across a set of deformed triplets and their psychotic adult brother whose name is oddly enough Daryl. This coincides with re-emerging emotional memories of his dead mother and it all comes together in the end in a dramatic and kind of fantastical way. At first the ending surprised me but then again, I thought this book was going to be a coming of age story in a southern gothic world...and it is. But by the time I finished, I realized it was also a fairy tale. Samuel is traversing a strange world of light and dark, of his inner and outer world, into an almost dreamlike realm where strange things seems oddly normal. While I would read a chapter it seemed intense but normal, but afterwards I realized just how strange it was. I liked this very much. What also surprised me was the depth there was to this simply written book. Everything seems to mean something that connects back to Samuel's psychological state and his journey that is helped along by a slew of friends and characters. There's a lot more going on here than a typical coming of age story. It's rare to find a book that's both unique and good. And even though it's a first novel that's not without its weaknesses, the amount of heart and guts contained in the story makes up for it.