Lisa Moore’s Alligator moves with the swiftness of a gator in attack mode through the lives of a group of brilliantly rendered characters in a city whose spiritual location is somewhere in the heart of Flannery O’Connor country. Madeleine, the driven, ageing filmmaker whose mission is to complete a Bergmanesque magnum opus before she dies Frank, a young man of innocence and determination whose life is a strange anthology of unpredictable dangers Valentin, the sociopathic Russian refugee whose predatory tendencies threaten everyone he encounters Colleen, at seventeen, a hard-edged female Holden Caulfield, drawn inexorably to the places where alligators thrive.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
Compelling and rewarding . . . surprisingly emotional, rich with human feeling and insight. Moore has a keen ear for both dialogue and a well-turned phrase, and the writing is suffused with a reckless joy
'An astonishing writer. She brings to her pages what we are always seeking in fiction and only find in the best of it: a magnetizing gift for revealing how the earth feels, looks, tastes, smells
[She] is from Newfoundland - a rare and fortunate inheritance for any novelist. But she can also flat-out write, and would be a major find even if she came from Kansas