The Great Night

Brief Description: A retelling of Shakespeare's A midsummer night's dream. Review Quotes:"A wild ride--I found ["The Great Night"] almost viscerally thrilling, especially the experience of moving through [Adrian's] prose as it crackles and purrs . . . the most brilliant and profound reimagining in Adrian's vision isn't the way he magics the humans but the way he humanifies Shakespeare's fairies . . . Reading "The Great Night" was an extraordinary experience. When I finished it, I started it over again."--Alexandra Mullen, "The Barnes and Noble Review" "Adrian has demonstrated a vast imagination in his earlier books, particularly "The Children's Hospital," a tale of doctors and patients and angels (yes, angels) in a post-apocalyptic hospital that has become the world's new ark. He is a fellow in pediatric hematology-oncology and a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, and his work indeed suggests a profound interest in where life meets death and how we make sense of that great undiscovered country . . . "The Great Night" is no exception . . . Adrian once agaiReview Quotes: "Magical. . . Adrian. . . uses Shakespeare's comedy not for a virtuosic display of stylistic mimicry but as a vessel to help him access and contain the amazingly bountiful, sparkling 'jewels from the deep' (as the Bard called them) of his rich imagination."--Heller McAlpin, "National Public Radio""A wild ride--I found ["The Great Night"] almost viscerally thrilling, especially the experience of moving through [Adrian's] prose as it crackles and purrs . . . the most brilliant and profound reimagining in Adrian's vision isn't the way he magics the humans but the way he humanifies Shakespeare's fairies . . . Reading "The Great Night" was an extraordinary experience. When I finished it, I started it over again."--Alexandra Mullen, "The Barnes and Noble Review" "Adrian has demonstrated a vast imagination in his earlier books, particularly "The Children's Hospital," a tale of doctors and patients and angels (yes, angels) in a post-apocalyptic hospital that has become the world's new-Review Quotes: "Chris Adrian's novels puff you full of delight, then rips your heart out. Adrian's a sadist, maybe. Or maybe he's got the biggest heart of any living writer, so big that it can hold the sweetest thoughts alongside shame and also death -- real death, in all its devastation and splendor."--Eugenia Williamson, "The Boston Phoenix""Magical. . . Adrian. . . uses Shakespeare's comedy not for a virtuosic display of stylistic mimicry but as a vessel to help him access and contain the amazingly bountiful, sparkling 'jewels from the deep' (as the Bard called them) of his rich imagination."--Heller McAlpin, "National Public Radio""A wild ride--I found ["The Great Night"] almost viscerally thrilling, especially the experience of moving through [Adrian's] prose as it crackles and purrs . . . the most brilliant and profound reimagining in Adrian's vision isn't the way he magics the humans but the way he humanifies Shakespeare's fairies . . . Reading "The Great Night" was an extraordinary expReview Quotes: "Adrian is such a forceful, potent writer that this non-realistic world commands its own searing, tangible realism on the page. For this isn't only a novel about magic and faeries, it's a novel about grief and loss and heartbreak . . . If you're willing to enter something magical, something dazzling and heartbreaking, then Adrian is a writer for you." -- Patrick Ness, "The Guardian " ." . . An enthralling nightmare. . . With the lusty, darkly comic finish comes an urge to wash one's hands while applauding; Adrian has twisted a romantic folly into a incredibly depraved orgy. Those who don't see the smut in Shakespeare might be shocked, but the Bard himself would likely be proud to see the bodily fluids spilled across one of his most beloved classics."-- Josh Davis, "Time Out New York" "Chris Adrian's novels puff you full of delight, then rips your heart out. Adrian's a sadist, maybe. Or maybe he's got the biggest heart of any living writer, so big that it can hold the sweetest thoughtsReview Quotes: "Adrian takes great imaginative risks in his writing.... He clearly knows the sorrow of the human comedy and what fools we mortals be. Brush aside your Shakespeare, and you will find the same in The Great Night."--The Washington Post"A touching human story of 'mortal sadness'...interweaving stories and situations that are in turn kitsch, camp, wry, and heartbreaking. Adrian balances seemingly incongruous elements to form a profoundly humane and moving work."--The Telegraph (London)"As moving as it is imaginative... Amid the magical romp, Adrian...manages to grapple with the problems and joys of the most human of emotions: love."--GQ "Whimsical, very sad, wonderful... At age forty, Adrian ranks among the best novelists of his generation, a moralist of a very high order.... He has taken the scaffolding of Shakespeare's play to build a cautionary tale about the dangers lurking in all of us."--The Cleveland Plain DealerBiographical Note: Chris Adrian is the author of "Gob's Grief," "The Children's Hospital," and "A Better Angel." Selected by "The New Yorker" as one of their "20 Under 40," he lives in San Francisco, where he is a fellow in pediatric hematology-oncology. Publisher Marketing: Chris Adrian's magical third novel is a mesmerizing reworking of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." On Midsummer's Eve 2008, three brokenhearted people become lost in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park, the secret home of Titania, Oberon, and their court. On this night, something awful is happening in the faerie kingdom: in a fit of sadness over the end of her marriage and the death of her adopted son, Titania has set loose an ancient menace, and the chaos that ensues upends the lives of immortals and mortals alike in a story that is playful, darkly funny, and poignant. Review Citations:

New York Times Book Review 06/10/2012 pg. 32 (EAN 9781250007384, Paperback)

Library Journal 03/01/2011 pg. 68 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Publishers Weekly 03/07/2011 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

Booklist 04/15/2011 pg. 28 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2011 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

New York Times Book Review 05/08/2011 pg. 13 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

Library Journal Prepub Alert 12/01/2010 pg. 90 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

New York Times Book Review 05/15/2011 pg. 34 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

Library Journal 12/01/2010 pg. 90 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

New Yorker (The) 08/01/2011 pg. 69 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2012 pg. 1 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2014 pg. 8 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

Bookpage 05/01/2011 (EAN 9780374166410, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Adrian, Chris CHRIS ADRIAN is the author of Gob's Grief, The Children's Hospital and A Better Angel, which was selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review. Adrian, a fellow in pediatric hematology and oncology at the University of California and a Ph. D. student at Harvard Divinity School, was also selected as one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" to watch.