11/25/2013
Morley (Come Sunday) scores with an audacious page-turner. Blythe Hollowell is only 16 when she’s kidnapped and taken to live in an abandoned missile silo by Dobbs, a local conspiracy theorist, who has chosen her to help him repopulate the world after end times. If the premise and some of the concepts initially owe too great a debt to Emma Donoghue’s Room, the specifics of life underground and Blythe’s coping mechanisms—in particular, her touching habit of using memories to teach herself, as she gets older in captivity, how to be an adult—quickly set it apart. At first Blythe dreams of escape and resists Dobbs, but as the years pass, she weakens, and when she bears a son, Adam, and Dobbs becomes increasingly unpredictable, she resigns herself to life in captivity. Time passes without losing momentum, and soon Adam turns 15, questioning Dobbs’s authority and demanding to go into the world they call Above. In a series of gripping twists, Morley elevates the complexities of Blythe and Adam’s situation, deepening the themes of survival and dependence. The tension diffuses toward the end, but the majority of the book is a stellar and surprising ride. (Mar.)
Above
Narrated by Madeleine Maby
Isla MorleyUnabridged — 13 hours, 54 minutes
Above
Narrated by Madeleine Maby
Isla MorleyUnabridged — 13 hours, 54 minutes
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Overview
Blythe Hallowell is sixteen when she is abducted by a survivalist and locked away in an abandoned missile silo in Eudora, Kansas. At first, she focuses frantically on finding a way out, until the harrowing truth of her new existence settles in-the crushing loneliness, the terrifying madness of a captor who believes he is saving her from the end of the world, and the persistent temptation to give up. But nothing prepares Blythe for the burden of raising a child in confinement. Determined to give the boy everything she has lost, she pushes aside the truth about a world he may never see for a myth that just might give meaning to their lives below ground. Years later, their lives are ambushed by an event at once promising and devastating. As Blythe's dream of going home hangs in the balance, she faces the ultimate choice-between survival and freedom.
Above is a riveting tale of resilience in which “stunning” (Daily Beast) new literary voice Isla Morley compels us to imagine what we would do if everything we had ever known was taken away. Like the bestselling authors of Room and The Lovely Bones before her, Morley explores the unthinkable with haunting detail and tenderly depicts our boundless capacity for hope.
Editorial Reviews
Both terrifying and shocking, and practically guaranteed to put a sense of dread in your stomach. .. . Too real for comfort. . . . Morley keeps us guessing the whole time,turning page after page as we wonder right alongside Blythe if she is ever getting back to the world she knew. . . . Gripping, chilling.
"Reeled out with the chilling calmness of a Hitchcock film, Above haunts as it illuminates. Deftly told, this tale of human resilience in the face of madness is a horror classic for our times."
Morley crafts a menacingly sinister tale of imprisonment and eerily inventive story of survival that will appeal to fans of riveting psychological suspense and cut throat dystopian fiction.
Combine the terror of Emma Donoghue's Room with the drama of The Hunger Games and you'll get a rough idea of how gripping Above is. Can someone make a film adaptation please?
"A riveting, heartstopping tale of determination, love and hope for the future."
"The isolation and darkness wrap you like wild vines and force you to face the nightmare, but Above plunges you forward and drives toward hope, because sometimes that's all that remains. This is a novel that challenges you to believe."
Morley’s writing is magnetic, instantly attaching the reader to the story. We see, we feel, and we cringe at the victim’s circumstances.”
What do you get when you mix the claustrophobia of Room with the psychological suspense of Before I Go to Sleep and a dash of The Road? Perhaps something that approximates Isla Morley’s suspenseful second novel.
Morley crafts a menacingly sinister tale of imprisonment and eerily inventive story of survival that will appeal to fans of riveting psychological suspense and cut throat dystopian fiction.
What do you get when you mix the claustrophobia of Room with the psychological suspense of Before I Go to Sleep and a dash of The Road? Perhaps something that approximates Isla Morley’s suspenseful second novel, Above.
Grips your heart from the first page and doesn’t let go. . . . A novel to savor.
A compelling tale of survival, reinvention, and hope. . . . Vivid and poignant.
Grips your heart from the first page and doesn’t let go. . . . A novel to savor.
Combine the terror of Emma Donoghue's Room with the drama of The Hunger Games and you'll get a rough idea of how gripping Above is. Can someone make a film adaptation please?
2013-12-17
South Africa–born Morley makes a wild U-turn from the semiautobiographical Come Sunday (2009) to write a captivity novel that morphs into a post-apocalyptic adventure. Blythe is abducted at age 16 by Dobbs, a creepy survivalist who insists he's saving her from the imminent Armageddon. She spends 18 years below ground in an abandoned missile silo near her Kansas home, bearing a son, Adam, who is 15 when Blythe kills Dobbs with a crochet needle and emerges Above to find that there actually was a disaster: The meltdown of 90 nuclear reactors some 15 years ago killed off most of the global population and left the rest deformed by radiation. In a world where most babies are Defectives, genetically sound Adam is a hot commodity; with the help of a sympathetic employee, he and Blythe escape the sinister facility planning to harvest his sperm and travel across the devastated landscape in search of her family. This powerful material suffers from the imperfect integration of its component parts. More than half the novel chronicles Blythe's years in the silo--it's Room told from the mother's point of view but without Emma Donoghue's stylistic and thematic mastery. Moving episodically through 18 years, the narrative throws out shards of insight into the evolution of Blythe's relationship with Dobbs and her strategies to protect Adam, but they never cohere into a full picture. Blythe's and Adam's initial post-silo wanderings nicely render her growing awareness that something is very wrong Above, but they occupy too many pages given the limited amount of space Morley has left herself to explore the new reality they must cope with. The excellent scenes following their escape, which show a shattered humanity trying to rebuild in small communities of damaged people, require more development to make the denouement in Blythe's ruined hometown truly meaningful, though it's quite moving nonetheless. A whole host of interesting ideas stuffed into a lopsided structure that doesn't support the author's high ambitions. Still, very intriguing and provocative.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171031565 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 03/04/2014 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Above
DOBBS WINS THE fight easily. He shuts and locks the door. I feel a small sense of relief. With a hulking slab of metal separating us, I am finally able to breathe just a little. It is only when I hear another thump, another door closing someplace above me, that I understand: not only am I to be left alone; I am to be hidden.
I am a secret no one is able to tell.
Just like that, instead of wishing Dobbs gone, I am waiting for him to come back.
Surely, it won’t take long.
When Dobbs returns, I’ll take him off guard. I’ll push past him, dash outside, and sprint across the field. I will steer clear of the road. I’ll head for the line of sycamore trees along the creek. I’ll make my way east, and he won’t think to follow me there on account of its being trappers’ territory. Even if I do get snared, it’ll be better than this, because someone will find me. Nobody’s going to find me here, whatever here is. A dungeon? I can’t make any sense of it. A big round room with a massive pillar right through the middle of it. Contraptions, wires, pipes, spigots, dials. I keep my back turned to the space, keep my face pressed up against the door. It is made of steel and has a handle, although not like one I’ve ever seen. Something a bank might have on its vault.
What has he done? What’s happened to me?
Surely, Dobbs should be getting back by now. He’ll take me out of here. He’ll explain it to me, not like before, which didn’t make any sense. He won’t be rough, either. Or cross. He’ll be nice, like how he is in the library.
I look at Grandpa’s pocket watch; only fifteen minutes have passed. Even though it is still ticking, I wind it tight. If only I were still at the Horse Thieves Picnic, our town’s annual tradition that I look forward to all year. The gathering that attracts a couple thousand people has since moved from its original location among the walnut trees of Durr’s Grove to Main Street, and its contests no longer include Largest Mustache for Boys Under 17 or Baby with the Worst Case of Colic, but there is still a parade and a carnival. Apart from the parade, the next most popular event is the concert at the bandstand, where Daddy, no doubt, is now line dancing. It takes no effort to imagine what my sister and brothers are doing. Suzie, with Lula Campbell, will be strutting around the midway looking for boys, and Gerhard, not actually bleeding to death from wrecking his pickup on I-70 like Dobbs had first said, will be off with his pals to scale the water tower. Having left the Horse Thieves Picnic early on account of Theo’s fever, Mama’s likely fallen asleep on her bed, the fan moving what the lazy July evening can’t be bothered to blow through the window. No one has probably even noticed that I’m gone. How long will it take them before they do? And when they do, where will they imagine I am? What will they think the cause for my absence is? They won’t be imagining anything bad, that’s for sure. Bad things don’t happen in Eudora, Kansas.
I look over my shoulder at the space behind me. The enormous concrete pillar and two partitions divide the round room into halves. Behind the partitions is where Dobbs said I could get myself something to drink. I can see a bit of the recliner, where I was told to sit and wait.
I don’t like the looks of anything behind me, so I keep my eyes on Grandpa’s watch. The minute hand and I go for long walks around the numbers. And then the numbers, the watch face, and everything else disappear, just like the time lightning split the maple tree outside our living room and we all vanished in its blinding flash. It’s like that, except in reverse. The darkness has swallowed me whole.
I can’t see my hand, even when I hold it up to my face. Nothing seeps through the darkness. I keep waiting for my eyes to adjust. The outline of the partitions or the big concrete pillar should be visible. I start shivering.
I think I hear something. “Dobbs?”
The darkness snatches my voice and issues nothing in return.
“Hello?”
Don’t panic. The electricity’s gone out; give it a minute.
If this were home, Mama would be feeling her way to the pantry for the lantern and the matches she keeps on the top shelf. Gerhard would have the flashlight under his chin, his bottom teeth thrust outward and his eyes crossed and buggy, and Suzie would be getting all hysterical, as if he really were the bogeyman. And Daddy would be chiding Gerhard, but only halfheartedly, because there’s nothing better than spooking girls.
But this is not home. This is not any kind of place you’d put a person. What kind of things do people put in a place like this? How far underground am I? There were a lot of stairs and a long passage that kept making sharp left and right turns. And too many doors to keep track of. Locks.
Just think of home. Just give it a minute. Just wait.
There is no way to tell what time is doing. Has it been five minutes or half an hour? Shouldn’t the electricity have kicked back on by now?
There is a creak somewhere behind me, to the left. A shifting. My ears strain. I hold my breath so I can hear better. Is there something in here with me? Something doing the breathing for me? In. Out. Sounds like air through clenched teeth. Something with its lips drawn back. Oh Lord, what if it comes for me?
I mustn’t move. Not a sound, or I will give myself away.
How could anything have entered? Is there a hole in the wall? Maybe the noise is nothing but a draft coming through a vent. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe some inner door opened. Because this no longer feels like a confined space but a very large one, widening still.
There is something behind this door, too. Something that turns it freezing cold. I scoot back, exposed. On my hands and knees, I shuffle over to where the kitchen is supposed to be. I must hide. Hurrying as fast as I can, I ram straight into something. My head about cracks. I can’t make any sense of what I’ve hit—something with knobs. I keep hurrying, this time with one hand outstretched.
My hand locates the leg of the table. I get under it, bring my knees up to my chin, and grip myself tightly. Maybe whatever is making the sound is one of those things that can see in the dark. Which means it can see me under the table with the chair legs pressed against me. It doesn’t help to tell myself my imagination is playing tricks on me. Please. Oh, please.
Sit still. Don’t move. Quiet. Ssh. Help me, someone, please, God.
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