The Gate House
by Nelson DeMille
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nelson DeMilleEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10-28
ISBN: 0446533424
Number of pages: 688
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Book Reviews of The Gate House
Book Review: John Sutter, Redux
Summary: 5 Stars
"What I didn't want at the end of the day were any old regrets. What I really needed now were some new regrets." -- John Sutter, in Nelson DeMille's "The Gate House"
OK, so after your fabulously wealthy Gold Coast society wife murdered her Mafia-boss lover ten years ago, you divorced her and sailed around the world for three years before you settled down in London, and now that you're back in the U.S. you're staying in the gatehouse of your ex-wife's ancestral estate, only to find that she's moved in to the guest house right up the street, and now you're about to fall into bed with one of your wife's young friends who, it turns out, used to have a mad crush on you -- and just then, when you think your life can't get any more complicated, who shows up at your door but the son of the Mafioso your ex-wife killed all those years ago...
Don't you hate when that happens? I know I do. But fortunately for readers of Nelson DeMille's "The Gate House," John Sutter, DeMille's protagonist, happens to be brilliant, fearless, witty, and a world-class smartass. He can easily handle situations that would overwhelm you and me to the point of paralysis, and he can do it with a cool intelligence and a rapier wit that leave you panting with excitement, drooling with anticipation, and rolling on the floor in paroxysms of laughter.
DeMille's plotting is flawless, his characters are distinctive and robust, his use of foreshadowing is masterful. The erotic scenes (and there are several of them) are rich, playful, and effectively arousing. The ending is breathlessly terrifying, featuring a morally ambiguous incident that may leave the ethicists among us buzzing for years to come. But all of this is window dressing to the real attraction of "The Gate House," which is the dazzling dialogue and narrative. The story is told first-person in the words of John Sutter, whose wry sarcasm and lightning wit permeate every paragraph, leaving you giddy with pleasure, forcing you to enjoy even the most somber scenes whether you want to or not. The themes of The Gate House include lust, infidelity, meddling parents, sexual assault, and even death -- but thanks to the irrepressible John Sutter, I don't think I've ever had so much pure fun reading a book.
"The Gate House" is the long-awaited sequel to "The Gold Coast," a novel DeMille wrote nearly 20 years ago. As it happens, "The Gold Coast" was my introduction to DeMille -- I had never heard of him when I picked up the book by chance at my neighborhood Barnes & Noble, and it blew me away. Since then I've devoured all of his novels, about half of which are exceptional. (It's the latter half that are so spectacular, by the way -- after authoring half a dozen workmanlike but unremarkable novels, DeMille penned "The Gold Coast" and instantly leapt into the realm of Masters of Fiction.) The only problem I had with "The Gold Coast" was that its ending failed to tie up every conceivable loose end, and I tend to be disappointed by novels that don't definitively resolve every plot line that's even remotely resolvable. DeMille, I've since learned, doesn't seem to subscribe to my view that it's a novelist's responsibility to present the reader with a denouement-in-a-box, neatly gift-wrapped, bound with a shiny ribbon, and topped by a bright bow. Maybe that's just me, perhaps some readers handle ambiguity better than I do. And I don't want to give anything away about the ending, so let me just say that if you're looking forward to being disappointed by the ending of "The Gate House," you're going to be disappointed. :)
DeMille goes to great pains to recap the key elements of "The Gold Coast" in the pages of "The Gate House" -- and so, in theory, you don't have to read the 1990 novel before you read this one. However, in my humble opinion, if you don't read "The Gold Coast" before you read "The Gate House," you're making a mistake of epic proportions. Would you have enjoyed the last episode of "The Sopranos" as much if you hadn't seen the other 85 episodes first? Of course not. And so even though "The Gate House" seems to be designed to stand alone, I have to believe that you will undergo a much richer reading experience if you read "The Gold Coast" first. (If Amazon doesn't market the two books as a package, they're missing a good bet.)
I hope you don't think I'm going overboard when I tell you that there simply has never been a better one-two punch in the history of books than "The Gold Coast" and "The Gate House." OK, maybe "The Old Testament" and "The New Testament" are more inspirational. But DeMille is nearly as thought-provoking. And much funnier.
* * * * * * * * * *
Although, on the surface, "The Gate House" is a novel about revenge, responsibility, and the consequences of our actions, it's really a book about love, redemption, and forgiveness. And although I think that DeMille would agree with St. Paul that the greatest of these is love, I think he's also trying to tell us that forgiveness runs a pretty close second.
"The Gate House" is so close to being a perfect novel that, if I had written it, I'd probably retire immediately, rather than risk following it up with something that couldn't possibly be as good. But while I'm just a novelist wannabe, Nelson DeMille is a Fiction God, and I'm betting that he's up to the challenge. Which explains why, even though I just finished reading "The Gate House," I can't wait to see what DeMille comes up with next.
Summary of The Gate House
#1 New York Times bestselling author Nelson DeMille delivers the long-awaited follow-up to his classic novel The Gold Coast.When John Sutter's aristocratic wife killed her mafia don lover, John left America and set out in his sailboat on a three-year journey around the world, eventually settling in London. Now, ten years later, he has come home to the Gold Coast, that stretch of land on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America, to attend the imminent funeral of an old family servant. Taking up temporary residence in the gatehouse of Stanhope Hall, John finds himself living only a quarter of a mile from Susan who has also returned to Long Island. But Susan isn't the only person from John's past who has reemerged: Though Frank Bellarosa, infamous Mafia don and Susan's ex-lover, is long dead, his son, Anthony, is alive and well, and intent on two missions: Drawing John back into the violent world of the Bellarosa family, and exacting revenge on his father's murderer--Susan Sutter. At the same time, John and Susan's mutual attraction resurfaces and old passions begin to reignite, and John finds himself pulled deeper into a familiar web of seduction and betrayal. In THE GATE HOUSE, acclaimed author Nelson Demille brings us back to that fabled spot on the North Shore -- a place where past, present, and future collides with often unexpected results.
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