Publishing History
ARC
(Advance Reading Copy / Proof): Morrow, May 2003. Trade
paper. Note: Copy from this text was modified prior to
release.
Morrow
(October, 2003; street dated 23 September). First
edition. Trade
paper.
A WORD OF EXPLANATION:
Future bibliographers may assume three novels, where in fact there is only one.
First, the agents licensed by DJS hated the original title of the novel, which
was THE PARTY NEXT DOOR. They sold it under the title PARTY GAMES (which sounds
like a kiddie's birthday handbook or a softcore porn manual) to Morrow, who
hated THAT title and changed it to BULLETS OF RAIN. The original cover featured
a font that was, to say the least, underthought and design-challenged. DJS
changed it and the publisher approved it. Now, to demonstrate how we all must
bow to the needs of large corporations, Morrow was informed by Barnes & Noble
that B&N "loved" the book, but "will not order it with THAT
cover." So now, after all that noise, the cover has been completely altered
to the image shown below. But it's STILL the same book ... despite the fact
that neither the cover nor the title reflect the book DJS had in his mind when
he wrote it.
Advance praise for Bullets of Rain
Widowed architect Arthur Latimer has become a recluse in his own home: a storm-proof fortress that doubles as a shrine to his dead wife. But the outside world beckons in the form of a bizarre party down-beach.
Now, just as the biggest hurricane ever to hit the Pacific Northwest rolls in with deadly force, Art is subjected to intrusions from his past and invasions from the present. And soon, he begins to doubt everything he sees or thinks he already knows. And soon, you may too.
"As a major fan of David's work, I was happy to see him with a new novel after so many years. Bullets of Rain is a highly original, boldly conceived psychological thriller observed with the rapt eye and assassin's sting of the artist as fer-de-lance. And you can quote me."
— John Farris
"David J. Schow's Bullets of Rain is a thriller, a literary metaphor, and one dark speeding bullet of a novel. Edgy, insightful, and fearless, it's a book I couldn't put down."
— Joe R. Lansdale
"A jagged nightmare spiked with charm, melancholy and vicious intelligence. Don't accept this novel's invitation to party unless you're prepared to be dragged to some very dark places - and to love every step of the way. Like being punched in the face by a poet."
— Michael Marshall Smith
"By virtue of being smart, scathing, and verbally inventive to an astonishing degree, David J. Schow distinguished himself early on as one of the most interesting writers of his generation. In Bullets of Rain, he has given us his boldest, most audacious fiction to date. Here, all of Schow's glittering weapons are sharper than ever before."
— Peter Straub
"(David J.) Schow is so fine a writer, so imaginative a storyteller, that he deserves a place in all contemporary fiction collections."
— Library Journal
"Take no prisoners fiction that rarely pulls away from the grisly heart of the matter, Schow's prose is extremely cinematic, filled with pungent dialogue, sharp, memorable characters, and a sense of macabre irony worthy of Alfred Hitchcock."
— San Francisco Chronicle
Read a short interview with DJS re: BoR at Publisher's Weekly
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bullets of Rain
David J. Schow. HarperCollins/DarkAlley
$13.95 paper (304p) ISBN 0-06-053667-5
Storms raging outdoors and in the mind of the protagonist create a maelstrom of menace in this sinuous psychological thriller by Schow ( The Kill Riff, The Shaft ).
A whopper of a hurricane is barreling up the California coast, and renegade architect Art Latimer is planning to ride it out and test the structural integrity of his self-designed dream home. At the same time, he's struggling to batten down powerful feelings about his wife, Lorelle, whose death two years before sent him into an emotional tailspin. As the storm intensifies, a string of peculiar experiences suggest that the foundations of his reality are wobbling. He finds an old bottle washed up on the beach containing a cryptic message that speaks eerily to him. Then he's visited by a long-lost friend who mysteriously disappears without a trace from the premises. Meanwhile, a wild house party is underway down the beach and host Price, a steely manipulator who employs drugs and humiliation to control his guests, schemes to use the storm as cover for playing sinister mind games with Art.
Schow works suspenseful sleight-of-hand with his story elements, skillfully underplaying the significance of the clues and deftly managing character viewpoints to direct what the reader sees. His kinetic orchestration of events — action sequences, moments of moving intimacy and the richly symbolic tempest outside — and vivid hardboiled prose push the plot to a thunderclap climax that in less assured hands would seem farfetched but here is a measure of coolly calculated audacity. (Oct.)
Forecast: Schow's credentials — he founded the cultish horror genre called splatterpunk and is the screenwriter of The Crow — should help get this into the right hands, as should a cover rave from Peter Straub.
by Stefan Dzimianowicz, from Publisher's Weekly 6 October 2003 |
