The Great Night by Chris Adrian

The Great Night

Chris Adrian

Though promoted as a re-write of A Midsummer Night's Dream, I wasn't sure where this book was taking me. Forget summer entertainment, this is darker stuff. The faeries are the most entertaining characters, the actors are obsessed and as for the lovers I thought that a conflation of their neuroses conjured up the whole thing. In the end I got there, links fell into place, but beware, if you open this book you may encounter your worst fear.

Extract
So thank goodness there existed in San Francisco a boy with a real bunny tail (Will had pulled it shortly after Oak had intercepted him in the park and led him to the door in the hill) growing out of his bottom, and thank goodness a monster in the shape of a middle-aged divorcee with a bad face-lift was threatening to do something atrocious to the faeries and to Will and that girl and Henry, who had lost his pants. Thank God Henry had lost his pants, however it had happened, and thank God the girl was such an anxious bitch.
Parallels
  • Enchanted Night by Steven Millhauser
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
  • The Lost Boys - the film
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Violence
Explicit sexual content