Review: "The Great Night" by Chris Adrian

Chris Adrian is a really busy guy the last time I heard. Not only is he writing novels and short stories, he is also a divinity student at Harvard and a pediatric fellow in hematology/oncology at University of California, San Francisco. With all these time consuming things going on in his life, it is a surprise to me he is able to write at all, let alone such imaginative tales such as his new novel The Great Night. It is a modern take on the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Titania, and her husband Oberon living in San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park with their court. On a night in 2008, three people, wounded by love, get lost in the park. There is Molly, who is still reeling from the suicide of her boyfriend Ryan, Will, a tree surgeon who is also getting over a breakup himself (a girl who happens to be Ryan’s sister) and finally Henry, a pediatric surgeon who attended to Titania’s adopted mortal son and who can’t remember what traumatic event has led to him to be so screwed up. All three end up in the park the night Titania, distraught over the break up of her marriage to Oberon, which was caused by the death of their mortal son, unleashes Puck, who in this story, is a lot more evil and vicious, out in to the world, which threatens its very existence. Add to those elements flashbacks to show how each character is connected and a group of hobos doing a musical version of Soylent Green, and this story ends up to be kind of a mess, albeit one with redeeming qualities, creativity, and a great sincerity. When I was reading this, I knew I was not supposed to follow a linear plot, and the best thing to do was follow it in a chapter by chapter basis, much like Naked Lunch, and if certain parts confused me, I should just let them pass and dive into the next section hoping it would be better. The sections with Will and his discovery of his love are very good and truthful, while the big reveal of what happened to Henry, which also involved Ryan, was very jumbled to me and I still need help figuring it out. I hope people seek this book out, because Adrian deserves the attention, even if this book is not perfect. He is a true original, with his first tow novels being a historical fiction piece called Gob’s Grief, and a massive 600 page book called The Children’s Hospital about a hospital floating on a flooded earth and the pediatric ward building a new society. He is not constricted by culture (which a few of the other writers in the 20 Under 40 book were) or literary trends, and writes with feeling and imagination. I look forward to reading more of Chris Adrian’s work, and if you like mystical works and Shakespeare, you should check out The Great Night.

Rating: 4/5