John the Revelator

By: Peter Murphy

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

This is the story of John Devine - stuck in a small town in the eerie landscape of southeast Ireland, worried over by his single, chain-smoking, Bible-quoting mother, Lily, and spied on by the "neighborly" Mrs.Nagle.

When Jamey Corboy, a self-styled Rimbaudian boy wonder, arrives in town, John's life suddenly seems full of possibility. His loneliness dissipates. He is taken up by mischief and discovery, hiding in the world beyond as Lily's mysterious illness worsens. But Jamey and John's nose for trouble may be their undoing, and soon John will be faced with a terrible moral dilemma.

Joining the ranks of the great novels of friendship and betrayal - A Separate Peace, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - John the Revelator grapples with the pull of the world and the hold of those we love. Suffused with family secrets, uncanny imagery, black humor, and hypnotic prose, this is a novel to fall in love with and an astounding debut.

©2009 Peter Murphy (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This work establishes Murphy as an author of tremendous imaginative and linguistic power who has mastered Flann O'Brien's supernatural whimsy, Beckett's grim irony, and McCabe's unsparing brutality." ( Library Journal)

Not exactly what I was expecting.

Where does John the Revelator rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Probably in the bottom 25%

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

There were a lot of potentially interesting things about this book that in my opinion were never fully developed.
I suppose among the more interesting in the book Quick B John's relationship with Jamie.
Also, John's mothers life which I wish we would have learned a little more about.
Least interesting would be the very inappropriate teacher.

Have you listened to any of Gerard Doyle’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes! That is one of the reasons that I chose this book.
If anyone has read some of my reviews, I have stated that Mr. Doyle is one of my favorite narrators.
His performance was wonderful as always!
It is the main reason that I stuck with the book.

Who was the most memorable character of John the Revelator and why?

John because he was the main character of the book.

Any additional comments?

I really wanted to love this book, but unfortunately I did not.
I usually enjoy Irish literature, and always enjoyed Gerard Doyles narration.
This book had so much potential but fell short in many areas.
At least that is my opinion.
It started out very slow, I finally started to really care about the characters about halfway through the book.
There were a lot of questions that did not get answered, many things to me just did not make a lot of sense.
The neighbor was a big part of the book, yet we never learned exactly why she was the way that she was.
It hinted at the fact that she may have been engaging in black magic or something that contributed to the illness of John's mother, but after hinting at that, the author did not elaborate.
There were other things there were other potentially interesting things that seem to have just been thrown in to take up space in the book.
I was left feeling unsatisfied at the end of the book.
Did not seem that there was closure or clarification on many of the things in this particular book.