Our June choice for Book Club is the first in a series of seven books called The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, by author Scott Lynch. I absolutely LOVED The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006) and couldn't put it down. It is exactly as reviews online say it is; a fantastic debut novel, and one heck of roller coaster ride from start to finish.
Out of the seven titles outlined for the series, only three have been published and the fourth is forthcoming. I did some quick internet research and the best info I can find is that it is available for pre-order from most places and has a release date of November 2019. So yeah, that can't come fast enough for me, but I also have to get through books two and three in the series before then too!
Right from the first pages you get a feel for the writing style and pace the story is going to take. It sucked me right in and I revelled in it like a dirty greasy burger that you need after a long night out of partying and dancing and you're sweaty and on an adrenaline high. That is how delicious I think, how much I loved, how much I devoured this book.
As I said I couldn't put it down; I finished it in record time by my own standards. Myself and one of the other Book Club girls were reading it at exactly the same time and at the same pace so we were texting about it a lot. Like we would text each other the next day after reading for the whole previous evening and be like: "Oh my gawd! That last plot point or chapter!!!"
The novel itself is broken down into four "Books" and starts with a Prologue and ends with and Epilogue. Each book has a set number of chapters, each chapter has a number of sections, and each chapter is ended by an Interlude. I really enjoyed the type of pace created by the way the writing was broken down in this way. Every interlude was a look into the past and you learned more back story, not just the main character Locke Lamora, but about a variety of the other characters as well. The only character that still remained a mystery at the end of the book was Sabetha, and oh boy, let me tell you all the theories I have come up with about her.
The Gentleman Bastards is the group of thieves that Locke Lamora belongs too. First he was an orphan, then bought by the Thiefmaker, and then sold to Father Chains, the blind priest, who makes him into the man we read about in the novel. The majority of the novel follows Locke and the other Bastards when they're older (in their 20's) and their various capers, with glimpses into the past that are covered in the multiple interludes. This only aides in enriching an already solidly rich meal of prose that Lynch puts on the page. (Man I can't get enough of reliving this book through the notes in my book journal right now.)
There is a distinguishable amount of profanity, vulgarity, blood and violence in the novel, but it sure was refreshing from some of the other novels we had read for book club. I mean, The Vagrant was a little grotesque, but in a creepy, disgusting, you're supposed to be uncomfortable way. Whereas Lies' elements sort of come naturally to the story and you're not as surprised when you read them. I mean, you are surprised, because there are a lot of twists in this book, but the way it is written does not surprise and is even entertaining, and funny, at times. It makes sense.
By about the middle of the book, the reader is starting to piece all the bits of the puzzle together and working on trying to anticipate what is coming next. But fair warning, I was NEVER able to see or anticipate what I thought I knew or thought was coming. Every single time something happened I was taken aback, or shocked, or shook, or stared at the pages in incredulity. That is one of the reason I love this book so much. It was absolutely unpredictable.
And by the end of the book, you don't want it to be over. All the pieces fall into place and you can't believe the masterpiece of a tale that has unfolded in front of your eyes. The intricacies, the details, all the parts that moved and danced as one. For me, by the end, I absolutely understood why the book was titled The Lies of Locke Lamora. It was the cherry on the top of the cake at the end of a masterfully crafted feast for my word-hungry mind and soul. If I didn't already have so many other books on my plate to get through, there is no doubt I would already be done books two and three and eagerly awaiting the serving of the fourth.
I will leave you with this quote from Father Chains to Locke Lamora:
'Some day, Locke Lamora,' he said, 'some day, you're going to fuck up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that the sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee. And I just hope I'm still around to see it.'
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