The Goldberg Mutilations - by Pablo D'Stair (Paperback)

About the Book

Renowned pianist Glenn Gould has withdrawn from the concert stage. Desiring seclusion, his focus is the recording studio, where he works on an experimental radio documentary. His self-isolation is intruded upon in manners unimaginably macabre.

Book Synopsis

"D'Stair has composed a grippingly deconstructed version of the classic crime drama ... [painting] a dizzying picture that is deliciously complex ... a reinvention of a style that must be as much commandeered as it is renovated ... a thrillingly unconventional novel, that successfully reinvents an old literary convention from the inside ... [The Goldberg Mutilations] is a remarkably original achievement."

KIRKUS REVIEWS

Renowned pianist Glenn Gould has withdrawn from the concert stage. Desiring seclusion, his focus is now the recording studio, where he is at work on an experimental radio documentary. But this self-isolation is soon intruded upon in manners unimaginably macabre.

The corpse of a hotel chambermaid is discovered. Butchered by a madman's hatchet. Harsh reviews of Gould's final concert stuffed in the mouth of the corpse. His legendary rendering of Bach's Goldberg Variations repeating from the room's turntable.

As further victims come to light and the investigation helmed by the unorthodox Detective-Inspector Dziurzynski proceeds, Gould finds his security and very sanity at hazard; unable to believe he is the inspiration for a murderer's horrific acts while unable to prove he is not the murderer, himself.

Review Quotes

Praise for THE GOLDBERG MUTILATIONS

"D'Stair has composed a grippingly deconstructed version of the classic crime drama ... [painting] a dizzying picture that is deliciously complex ... a reinvention of a style that must be as much commandeered as it is renovated ... a thrillingly unconventional novel, that successfully reinvents an old literary convention from the inside ... [The Goldberg Mutilations] is a remarkably original achievement."

KIRKUS REVIEWS

Praise for the writing of Pablo D'Stair

The first thing that occurs to you when you pick up a volume of D'Stair is that it has no business being good. No credentials. None of the usual apparatus that tells you a book has appeared: publishers, agents, press releases. The industry didn't cough this one up. The second thing, once you start to turn the slippery pages, is: how the Hell can such good writing come from nowhere? Who the Hell is Pablo D'Stair, anyway? The final note, the one that makes D'Stair a little troubling, is that this writing is a voice inside your head. Nothing can prepare you for that ... Pablo D'Stair is defining the new writer. There is NO ONE else. As reckless as Kerouac's 120-foot trace paper, D'Stair's independence from all of us needs to be studied and celebrated ...

TONY BURGESS (Pontypool Changes Everything)

[The work] is written by someone who cares about language - you'd be surprised at the number of novels written by people who don't. ... D'Stair is committed ... you stop yourself from skimming because you start thinking you might be missing something - [the work] is too well written to skim ... again and again you're drawn in ... you get used to the rhythm and follow it because the work is obsessive. We find ourselves in a languid kind of suspense, bracing ourselves ...

BRET EASTON ELLIS (American Psycho)

If our minds are hamsters on wheels, then Pablo has more hamsters than any of us ... D'Stair doesn't just write like a house afire, he writes like the whole city's burning, and these words he's putting on the page are the thing that can save us all.

STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES (Mongrels)

Original. Idiosyncratic. Off-kilter. Strange. The slap-back dialog, the scenes as accurate as if directed by Fritz Lang. This is D'Stair's world. Welcome to it. I envy you if this is your first time in.

COREY MESLER (Memphis Movie)

D'Stair is clearly a master. Like Jean Patrick Manchette reincarnated.

MATT PHILLIPS (The Bad Kind of Lucky)