Shadowplay

 

Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor    400 pages

Seems I’m zero-for-two in the last several weeks. Books that I thought were going to be page turners turned out to be total duds. First, Kate Morton’s “The Clockmaker’s Daughter,” then this one.

 Have you ever not given up on a book because you are positive it’s going to get better?  I’ve done this on several occasions, but I must admit that I was too pig-headed to give up on this one.  Turns out, after I turned the last page, I could not tell anyone what this book was about. Oh, there were glimpses of that “it’s gonna turn around here,” but they never came to fruition. Basically the best I can do it a say it is an epistolary novel involving real-life theater folk and literary figures. 

Now if I was in y’all’s shoes, I’d be headed to Amazon to read the synopsis, so I’ll save y’all the trouble:

“…set during the golden age of West End theater in a London shaken by the crimes of Jack the Ripper.

Henry Irving is Victorian London’s most celebrated actor and theater impresario. He has introduced groundbreaking ideas to the theater, bringing to the stage performances that are spectacular, shocking, and always entertaining. When Irving decides to open his own London theater with the goal of making it the greatest playhouse on earth, he hires a young Dublin clerk harboring literary ambitions by the name of Bram Stoker to manage it. As Irving’s theater grows in reputation and financial solvency, he lures to his company of mummers the century’s most beloved actress, the dazzlingly talented leading lady Ellen Terry, who nightly casts a spell not only on her audiences but also on Stoker and Irving both.

Bram Stoker’s extraordinary experiences at the Lyceum Theatre, his early morning walks on the streets of a London terrorized by a serial killer, his long, tempestuous relationship with Irving, and the closeness he finds with Ellen Terry, inspire him to write DRACULA, the most iconic and best-selling supernatural tale ever published.

A magnificent portrait both of lamp-lit London and of lives and loves enacted on the stage, Shadowplay’s rich prose, incomparable storytelling, and vivid characters will linger in readers’ hearts and minds for many years.”

 “Shadowplay” receives 1 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.