The Night Tourist -- Katherine Marsh

While headed to his after-school job (assisting the head of Yale's Classics department with her new translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses), ninth-grade prodigy Jack Perdu is hit by a car.  When he wakes up in the hospital, he hears an extremely strange conversation between a nurse and a very old man, but he figures it must have been a dream. 

The day he returns home, he surprises a stranger in his father's study:

"Who are you?" Jack asked.

With a loud shout, the man leaped off the couch and dropped the piece of paper.  His eyes bulged at Jack.  For a moment, they just stared at each other.  Then the stranger ran to the open window and, without a word, jumped out of it.

Jack dashed to the window and looked out at the courtyard.  There was no sign of a body.  The courtyard was empty.

An old map bearing his dead mother's name, a tour of Grand Central, John Donne's Song (which fans of Howl's Moving Castle will be very familiar with), a girl called Euri and a golden subway token lead him to New York's underworld.  And by underworld, I don't mean the world of organized crime.  I mean the Land of the Dead.

The Night Tourist is very readable, a page-turner with likable characters and a plot that winds around and around and back again.  The mechanics of the underworld is just... neat, the guards and Cerberus are legitimately scary and the scene with Dylan Thomas is priceless.

There are a lot of references to Classical lit:  There are quotes, retellings of old stories, and quite a few moments when Jack thinks/talks about the different ways that a single word can be translated.  The Orpheus and Eurydice myth is a major theme -- it's introduced on the second page and keeps popping up throughout.  I'd recommend the book to young fantasy fans who have been enjoying the recent spate of books set in New York City.  (How's that for specific?)  Also to fans of (obviously) classical mythology, to fans of Dead Lit, and it might be worth trying it on young urban fantasy readers. 

Note:  Some people may be bothered by the suicidal background of (at least) two of the characters -- I actually wouldn't be surprised to see it get challenged due to that.

Gripe #1:  There was something odd about the rhythm.  The sentences didn't seem to flow, somehow.  I can't describe it more than that unfortunately, and it's probably totally just me.  But I did get a real Stop and Start and Stop again, especially at the beginning.

Gripe #2:  This is minor, but it catapulted me right out of the story.  At one point, Jack and Euri are hovering over a fountain in Central Park.  They have to hold hands, or Jack will fall.  So, they're there, hovering, planning their next move, when Jack reaches back and pulls the map out of his backpack.  One handed.  One would assume that he had to unzip it, too.  Oh, it's possible, sure, but it would have been so much of a pain that you'd think there'd be some mention of it being a pain.  Then, he hands it to Euri, who opens the map and traces the lines on it with her finger.  So she's holding the map and tracing the lines.  With one hand.  No mention of difficulty.  Anyway, again.  I know that that's totally just me being annoying, but that stuff matters to me. 

Comments

[Elizabeth]

John Donne's SONG is also in the front of Gaiman's STARDUST. These YA fantasy authors write great stuff, but they need to get a new poem. How 'bout a nice, dirty limerick?

[cc]

Dude, was this book written for me or what?

[Leila]

I know. You'll have to let me know what you think. I had an issue with the ending, too, but I didn't want to go into it because hey, huge spoiler, and also because I feel like I might just be being too nitpicky.

As if that whole freakout about the floating-holding-hands-backpack-map scene wasn't nitpicky enough.

[mordena]

Well, nitpicky, maybe, but you do have to wonder, when you read things like that: where's the editor? If the unpublished masses like myself struggle to get every sentence perfect and every logical flaw resolved before we even submit, why does a published book that's been looked over by several pairs of eyes still have one-handed-backpack moments that bring the reader up short?

[Kelly Fineman]

Does Dylan Thomas "rage, rage?" I will have to read it. Kind of like The Lightning Thief, kinda like The Chaos King, kinda like its own self. But the floating/one-hand thing is the sort of thing that I notice, too, and dislike.

[a Paperback Writer]

Wow. What a cover! I'd pick it up just for that!

[Leila]

It's shiny, too! That doesn't come across in the picture.

[Kailey]

this book is so freaking boring!!!

[Kathryn]

I enjoyed the book more than I enjoyed the front cover :]

[monne]

this book is soooo amazing i like how its very mysterious and how the characters connect good work katherine i give u a 3 thumbs up cuz i have three thubms this book is totally spooky and outragous and i like the cover too

[generic viagra]

For the Maya their underworld was the Xibalba, and at one point the Xibalbans enjoyed the worship of the people on the surface of the Earth, who offered human sacrifice to the gods of death. Over the span of time covered in the Popol Vuh, the Xibalbans are tricked into accepting counterfeit sacrifices, and then finally humiliated into accepting lesser offerings from above.