The stunning second novel from Keith Donohue, author of the critically acclaimed international bestseller The Stolen Child.

A lonely widow, Margaret Quinn still grieves for her daughter, Erica, a runaway wanted by the FBI for attempted homicide years ago. When a mysterious child arrives at her doorstep in the middle of a cold night, Margaret’s life is changed forever. Possessed with strange powers and a preternatural intelligence, the girl leads Margaret to question what is real and what is magical. The mystery of the girl’s identity lies at the heart of this enchanting, mesmerizing story of salvation.

“Donohue's sparkling debut especially delights because, by surrounding his fantasy with real-world, humdrum detail, he makes magic believable.”–Kirkus Reviews on The Stolen Child


From the Compact Disc edition.

 

Cassandra Campbell has a difficult mission. She must convince listeners to suspend their disbelief and accept a world that darts between the real and the otherworldly. Nine-year-old Norah arrives in the middle of the night at the home of the lonely Mrs. Quinn. Mrs. Quinn's daughter, Erica, ran away ten years earlier, and she willingly takes in the child and makes up a story to explain her presence. Campbell's narration during this section of the story is whispery. Is she conveying secrecy, Norah's mysterious nature, or the questionable traits of the precocious child? Campbell's reading is more substantial when the character of Erica re-enters the story. She is more solidly developed than the angelic Norah, whose enigmatic, ethereal qualities may or may not hook the listener. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

 

"Norah's unexplained origins form the enigmatic core of this story . . . the novel movingly illustrates the quest for connection hardwired into every human heart."

 

"[A] strange and finely written novel. Donohue has a talent for using small details to draw his characters, and the result is a dark and unsettling story that takes hold of the reader."

 

"Fused with spectral imagery and magnetic characters, Donohue's ethereal foray into the unexpected consequences of love, impenetrable depths of loss, and infinite possibilities of faith is a chilling yet affirmative experience."

 

"[A] beguiling tale of those who love well, but not wisely, unspooling like a poem embroidered on the heart -- ornate, painful and true. . . . While some readers might liken Donohue's penchant for mystical realism to that of novelist Alice Hoffman, any sweeping comparisons shortchange both writers, whose immense gifts bear separate and distinct literary imprimaturs. Still, he shares Hoffman's uncanny ear for capturing the libretto of childhood . . ."

 

"Angels of Destruction is replete with ghostly presences, harbingers of doom, angels good and bad. Surveys indicate that more than half of us believe in angels, so this otherworldly novel should find a ready audience."

 

"Donohue never quite reveals the mystery at the heart of Norah's sudden appearance, and that makes Angels of Destruction all the more satisfying and, yes, believable. Literary and historical clues are scattered throughout: references to the atomic bomb; a spectral man in fedora and camel-hair coat who pursues Norah and haunts Margaret; and an oblique nod to the Liber Juratus, a 14th-century manuscript containing a roll call of angels. The talisman that both Norah and Una pass on to those they love is a child's teacup with a chip in it, which invokes Auden's great poem As I Walked Out One Evening: 'The crack in the tea-cup opens/A lane to the land of the dead.'
Angels of Destruction doesn't shrink from the tragedies and inevitable separations that dog us. The book's coda is beautiful and wrenching, yet still leaves its protagonists and readers open to the possibility that the miraculous, once glimpsed, might recur. 'Love is not consolation, it is light,' wrote Simone Weil. In these bleak times, we can thank Donohue for opening a door in a darkened room."

 

"With 'Angels,' Donohue delivers a magical tale of love and redemption that is as wonderfully written as it is captivating. . . . Donohue is delightfully descriptive in his writing. His word choices are carefully considered . . . and his pacing rivets you to page after page. . . . 'Angels' earns its wings."

 

"Angels of Destruction is charming, suspenseful, and even touching."

 

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"A captivating tale . . . poignant and beautifully told."

 

"A wonderful, fantasy-laden debut . . . so spare and unsentimental that it's impossible not to be moved."

 

"Utterly absorbing . . . a luminous and thrilling novel about our humanity."

 

"The book's emotional impact is as fierce as the imagination behind it. The result is magical."

 

"An ingenious, spirited allegory for adolescent angst, aging, the purpose of art."

 

"Unusual and engaging . . . puts flesh to the bones of old fears."

 

Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue
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