Mao Game
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Book Overview
This is the story of Jordan Highland, a Hollywood child star whose life resembles the card game called Mao--a game in which only the dealer knows the rules. A heroin addict at fifteen, Jordan is estranged from his neurotic aging-starlet mother and the victim of his ex-pro football player father's bizarre sexual predilections. Having crashed and burned in the L.A. fast lane before he is old enough to drive, Jordan waits and watches as his mother and grandmother--an extraordinary woman who was once a renowned photographer and is ravaged by cancer--play the ultimate hand of Mao, with Jordan designated as the winner's "prize."
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0380731827
ISBN13:9780380731824
Release Date:October 1998
Publisher:ReganBooks
Length:224 Pages
Weight:0.45 lbs.
Dimensions:0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"
Customer Reviews
3 ratings
Heartwrenching Neo-Gothic Masterpiece
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
Joshua Miller treats his subject matter with all the delicacy and tender precision of a surgeon; his uncanny proclivity for hypnotic imagery saturates this amazingly-first-time novel. Nothing escapes Miller's penetrating eye: not just the inner cores of women, sexuality, incest, drugs, and suicide, but even photography, the lives of painters and revolutionaries, and art and fashion styles of the early decades. Narrated in hauntingly sparse yet exacting prose, Jordan Highland's legendry is as potent as that of Holden Caulfield's or (Plath's) Esther Greenwood's. Above all else, his retainment of innocence and distinct lack of bitterness or jadedness are what truly ensorcel our hearts to the end. This novel creeps under your skin, sinks its teeth in most lovingly, and won't let go.
Beautiful, Haunting Prose
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
I'm absolutely shocked that this is a peice from a first time novelist. The psychadelic imagery and heart breaking plot weave through the pages like a symphonic masterpiece. Its one of my favorite books and I recommend it to anyone who is drawn to the styles of Sylvia Plath or J.D. Salinger
NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 27 years ago
"Mao can be taken as a pointed metaphor for the uncertainties of life and miller does an admirable job of detailing JOrdan's own experience of those uncertainties in a quiet manner that is both highly observant and morbidly witty. Better yet, he does it without saturating his prose in a self-concious" NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW SEPTEMBER 21, 1997"Joshua Miller has succeeded in weaviving these sensationlistic elements into a vivd and affecting first novel about a young man's emotional deprivation-and his ultimate salvation." NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW SEPTEMBER 21st, 1997
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