The Thief Maker<\/i> A Novel by D.H. Schleicher <\/b> (iUniverse Press)<\/p>\n
Review by Kent Manthie<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been said that the events of September 11, 2001 forever altered America in profound ways as well as the individual psyches of its people. Most Americans, but especially those who were directly affected, can chart their lives as \u201cbefore 9\/11\u201d and \u201cafter 9\/11\u201d, using it as an ugly milestone to put other, tangential things in perspective.<\/p>\n
Some people had their lives turned upside down and were forever altered by 9\/11 and others who were thousands of miles away were also affected, those images having been seared onto the consciousness of millions of TV viewers.<\/p>\n
Now that we\u2019re a \u2018safe\u2019 distance from the actual event, six years on, there have been a couple movies, lots of non-fiction books, websites, tons of commemorative this and special issues of that as well as that horrible made-for-TV travesty last year, not to mention the legions of conspiracy buffs who\u2019ve made their neuroses a cottage industry.<\/p>\n
If anything positive emerged out of the mountain of dreck that 9\/11 spawned it was the third novel by one D.H. Schleicher, entitled \u201cThe Thief Maker\u201d, an inventive, stylistically nihilistic novel that uses the events of September 11, 2001 as a backdrop and even then in the latter half of the book. It\u2019s only on the peripheries that the realities of that day interpolate, making bad situations worse or complicating matters further, but nonetheless it\u2019s an essential element of the novel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Thief Maker\u201d jumps back and forth, from the mid-1980s to the 1990s, up to the present and even into the future \u2013 as far forward as 2008. It may sound confusing but when one is immersed in the novel it actually works quite well as a literary device.<\/p>\n
Seemingly disparate sets of highly complex people are introduced and their character traits are developed in front of our eyes only to slowly morph into something unexpected; there\u2019s a thread that connects these people, they all seem to be intertwined in this intricate web of humanity. The characters in the novel are all so vividly portrayed and developed so well that you come to not only visualize them in your head while reading the book but you begin to feel like you know them.<\/p>\n
There is William Donovan, the con man whose past is never far behind him; Felice Morrison, the cold as ice lesbian psychiatrist who grows up to hate humanity and for whom love and hate are interchangeable, Frank Morrison\u2019s a man with a secret past and a dark future. Looming above it all, haunting everyone in the story is the recently deceased Marie Gail, a hopeless young junkie with AIDS whose hate was so strong that it contaminated those around her. She died in a lonely, dark rage from the pneumonia not uncommon to those with AIDS. Marie left behind Rex, a young son who was initially taken away from Marie in her days of heroin addiction and general bad craziness, which leads us to the foster parents that take care of Rex for a few years until shortly before her death, Catherine and Rodames Fowler, two psychologists who are doing a long-term experiment with their deaf children in psycholinguistics and into which Rex had been enveloped. Marie had gotten clean and with Felice, her lover, won back custody of the boy and together they lived as much like a normal family as they could for the short time they had before Marie succumbed to her disease. Just before she died, Marie had asked Felice to take care of Rex, to raise him as if he was her own. Felice willingly accepts this responsibility and agrees to adopt him as a final act of love for Marie before she dies. This is all so complicated and I\u2019m afraid there\u2019s much more but instead, you\u2019d better just read the book.<\/p>\n
Towards the end all bets are off and suddenly the \u201cpost-9\/11 world\u201d has turned into Bedlam and realities are getting destroyed left and right; things aren\u2019t as they seem, they never are. The climactic buildup is a shrieking anxious ride that gets thick with complexity and before you know it you\u2019re being hit in the head with a dynamite denouement. I won\u2019t spoil things by describing it any further, but let me just say that you\u2019re in for some rollercoaster-style twists and turns.<\/p>\n
You know, originally, I wasn\u2019t really in the mood for having to read another book \u2013 I\u2019m already juggling three books as it is and so, when they gave me \u201cThe Thief Maker\u201d to review I didn\u2019t look forward to reading it. I went into the book with an unenthusiastic drudgery and I wanted to hate the thing just for being made to read it. Nevertheless, I kept on and while I never thought Schleicher\u2019s writing was without great style or that the clarity and precision wasn\u2019t there I was just – oh, I don\u2019t know\u2026I mean, at first the book wasn\u2019t what I\u2019d call a \u201cpage-turner\u201d but when I got to the midway point the excitement was turned up a couple notches and pretty soon I couldn\u2019t put it down until I finished it. I can\u2019t tell you exactly what sort of action makes it pick up because that would spoil much of the plot \u2013 I probably shouldn\u2019t have even said that; therefore, you\u2019d better just go buy the book to find out.<\/p>\n
I thought D.H. Schleicher wonderfully captured a lot of nuances surrounding modern-day American living spot-on. He brings these characters to life; I found myself really identifying with characters; I really felt emotional about them, amazed by some and hating others, empathizing with some of them too and disgusted by others. Schleicher draws the reader into this smartly crafted parallel universe \u2013 one that is remarkably like our own world. The action takes place between Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey and even [banjo music playing] takes a detour down to North Carolina for a spell.<\/p>\n
It was hard to tell at first where the story was going to go; whether it\u2019d be to a boring, clich\u00e9d neighborhood from which you\u2019d want to exit ASAP or a fabulous world where you want to stay around as long as you can. The latter was the case for \u201cThe Thief Maker\u201d; in fact, I purposely took my time reading this novel. I didn\u2019t want to flip through this too quickly; it\u2019s only 214 pages, easy to read, not at all verbally confusing or convoluted in its prose. Mystery man, Dave Schleicher, who graduated from Elon University with a B.A. in psychology in 2002, seems to have found his voice, developed a style of his own; it\u2019s not an ostentatious one, though; the book reads quite easily, smoothly, not too rough or stilted, making the storyline roll along with no bumps or obstacles, no extraneous riff-raff built up throughout the paragraphs either, making the basic story stick out that much more. Schleicher\u2019s currently living in Voorhees, New Jersey, where he takes time out to smell the roses between writing binges. He also keeps a pretty regular web log at davethenovelist.wordpress.com \u2013 check it out, there are plenty of things to read: reviews, opinion pieces and so on.<\/p>\n
What with the hot season coming up, \u201cThe Thief Maker\u201d would be a great addition to your summer reading list. Check out the publisher\u2019s website:. http:\/\/www.iuniverse.com \u2013 KM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Thief Maker A Novel by D.H. Schleicher (iUniverse Press) Review by Kent Manthie It\u2019s been said that the events of September 11, 2001 forever altered America in profound ways as well as the individual psyches of its people. Most Americans, but especially those who were directly affected, can chart their lives as \u201cbefore 9\/11\u201d and \u201cafter 9\/11\u201d, using it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[498],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-the-thief-maker-book-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7023,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2012\/08\/16\/new-cinema-the-silent-thief\/","url_meta":{"origin":309,"position":0},"title":"new cinema: THE SILENT THIEF","author":"Reviewer Rob","date":"August 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"[Indy Film]The Silent ThiefTweet Info from their Facebook page: Released 2012 Genre Psychological Thriller Studio jenkev productions, Inc. 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