Bøger af Idrian N Resnick

Humpty-Dumpty Sister is my attempt to give voice to my sister's life and death with schizophrenia. When I was fourteen and on my way to school early one day, the doorbell rang in our NYC apartment. There stood my seventeen-year old sister, Charmion, her stockings fallen to her knees, her dress crumpled, and tears pouring out of her eyes. She begged not to have to go to school. Our mother enfolded Charmion into her arms, hushed her and whispered to me: "Go to school. She'll be all right." But she was not all right; ever again. She had taken her first fall into paranoid schizophrenia, becoming both suicidal and homicidal. She broke into so many pieces that even I, her champion-charged at five by my father to take care of her, our other sister and Mother-could not, with all my mind, body, heart and soul put her together again. Over most of the next fifty years, Charmion was confined to mental hospitals and residences for the mentally ill. She was: shocked, poisoned, iced into comas, beaten and drugged into "fear and trembling." And more. This is my account of those awful years and events-most of our lives. It is a story of destroyed lives and families, of hope and perseverance, of guilt, sadness and fury. Truly, "lose your dreams and you will lose your mind." But as well, lose your mind and you will lose your dreams.

Tommy O'Neill still believes that his father-killed when his B26 was shot down in the Battle of Midway in 1942-is not completely dead. Even though Tommy is now eight and it's been four years, his heart tells him that unless he can somehow touch his father "up in the sky" his daddy will never be "alldead." Tommy is determined to find a way and eventually fixes on the wooden water tower atop his New York City apartment building as a way to find the hole in the sky through which his father vanished. He meets Mike Murphy, a fireman who is struggling with his own death demons from the war. He befriends Tommy, teaches him how to play baseball, goes to dinner at Tommy's and takes him to his family's Sunday meal, both producing hilarious scenes of class misfits. Mike tries to help Tommy understand what happens when a person dies. Yet, he's not so sure himself. Together, they set out to find out about "afterdeath" so they can lay their dead to rest once and for all.

The Invisible Hand uses the thriller genre to explore human contradictions: life and death, right and wrong, love and obligation, loss and dreams. The Invisible Hand is a thriller with brains and heart, about the vast greed and lust for power driving financial globalization. It is about men whose ethical visions are seen through broken glass, and who travel along roads that beckon with false light, inevitably leading them to dark channels of violence and mindless destruction-the deadly fantasies of powerful old men's dreams. It is about our time. A frightenly current and realistic tale of intrigue and duplicity, The Invisible Hand is set in the world of international monetary speculation. It raises fundamental questions about whether or not it's possible to make the world a better place for ordinary people. Are the opportunities for corruption so pervasive, the domination of technology so complete, the capacity for brutality so inherent, the speed of destructive forces so beyond comprehension and control, that efforts at significant progressive change are inevitably doomed? Has the nation state lost its ability to govern and meet the needs of its citizens? Two men-Matt Webster and U.S. Senator Zeke Hascomb, both unable to let go of the past-clash on opposite sides of the race to control foreign exchange speculation before the world economy collapses. Unlikely hero Matt Webster, an ex-baseball great and former phantom Wall Street trader known only as "RBI," is pressed by the U.S. president into crafting a solution. Matt, having lost two life dreams, believes that he puts the people he loves in danger; which is exactly what he does when he answers the president's call. Zeke leads a cabal of ruthless men in foreign currency speculation to achieve dark goals. Also plagued by horrific losses-including a recent psychotic breakdown of his beloved daughter-he concludes that it will be easier to change the world than save his loved ones. Matt's team of crack analysts uncover the secrets of global financial speculation but come across signs of a money plot that will topple governments and shred markets. We follow Matt's crew pulling apart and reassembling diverse pieces of information from around the financial world, much of them hidden, like today's bundled derivatives. Zeke's security uncovers Matt's group and he hires a killer to silence them; suddenly, lives are in danger. Two women ultimately determine the outcome. Matt's colleague-lover, Peg Donahue, gradually coaxes him to yield his guilt and listen to his heart. Jenny, Zeke's wife and the intellectual architect of his political career, becomes suspicious when she sees Zeke changing. She decides she has to do something to alter his course or all will be lost. Death is the lynch pin between Zeke and Matt; one is in love with its power, the other cannot stop running toward it. Killer Frankie Cavallaro is not just a hired gun; he is Death personified. Frankie willingly becomes Zeke's instrument but paradoxically struggles to establish sanity in Zeke's relationship with death. Frankie ultimately loses his battle for order with both Zeke and Matt as they rush toward self-destruction. Death, futility, tragedy and betrayal stalk both men to the end. The story brings us face-to-face with two ancient conundrums: Man's attraction to Death as an instrument, and his inability to find a way to decide at what point ends stop justifying means.

Seven-year-old Noel has not made a sound since birth. There's nothing wrong with him physically. Something was done to him. Barely surviving in backwoods poverty, he communicates with a small bell tethered to his wrist. Although he has no language, we use our own as we enter his mind and heart to experience what he sees, feels and thinks. He rings his bell to show his love for his father and teenage sister. It trembles in fear when his alcoholic and verbally and physically abusive mother assaults him or his sister with a belt. Noel seeks refuge in the peacefulness of the woods around him and the security of an enormous cave, with a narrow pathway adjacent to a bottomless pit. A man comes into the family's lives. When real trouble erupts and terrible forces confront them, his sister runs, Noel climbs into a box and his father shows up with a gun.