I have read DANNY three times and think it is probably the best book ever written.
There is just so much there, so tragic, so moving, so inevitable, and funny as well, a sort of black comedy that goes wrong and turns into the worst kind of Greek tragedy.
The end was just so beautiful. Danny doomed to walking the globe like one of the undead. The other characters are incidental. The three Jackson Moores are the whole world to each other and of course, become their own destruction. I loved that atmosphere of stark, bleak poetry: the isolated setting within a peopled place, Gothic without purple prose; and, most of all, the courageous wealth of detail.
Unashamedly a fan.
Val - Live Journal
How controversial a book is really depends on what you see as the norm. My Nan, who lives on a diet of pure pornography which she call romance, would probably not find DANNY very controversial, whereas my geek brother would probably be quite shocked since it is not at all like the safe world of PC Pro. And publishers call everything controversial from the latest racy romance to the terrible Trinny & Suzanna.
To me, though, DANNY's claim to the term controversial is in its audacity to be a thousand pages long. Take the penultimate chapters, for example. It would be so easy to tell us what to think, or to give us an internal monologue from John as Danny and Stephen cavort in the next room, instead we are shown every encounter in full painful detail, forcing us to listen and experience just as John is doing and feel his anger and frustration and that horrible since of impending disaster.
It's like a written version of the slo-mo sequence in Carrie when we wait for the pig blood, we know it's coming, we're powerless to stop it, and we must go through that slow agony of watching and waiting.
Jodie Rhodes & Jill Allen, Sheffield - by Email
John Jackson Moore... was the best character in the book. WE LOVE JOHN.
Tom Pointon, West Midlands, UK
DANNY. Underground future cult classic? Three brothers and cousin play sadistic sexual power games. Motivated by jealousy, hatred, desire for control or revenge. Total page turner, pushing remorselessly to an appalling (anti) climax. Boundaries separating love, hate, pleasure, pain have dissolved for characters who've lost all conception of themselves as separate beings. DANNY's eroticism forces the reader to confront their assumptions and motivations. Compelling, brutal, graphic and at times disturbing. Emily Bronte meets Brett Easton Ellis. Highly recommended unless you're easily shocked or offended.
Graham, London, UK
An incredible story of uncontrolled love, passion and desire. Chancery Stone's characters are ' in your face' right from the word go and although the book deals with extremely vivid portrayals of lust, jealousy and violence the storyline keeps you riveted right to the end. This is not a book for the faint hearted or for your mother, many will find its sexual content shocking and disturbing but 'Bravo' to the author for being brave enough to write it.
N. Vettese, Aberdeen
DANNY has such an epic plot I'm not sure how to give an idea of it, but basically its about a family of brothers who get caught up in a downward spiral of sexual abuse. That said it reads more like hard core erotica, and the combination of this with a 'serious' back plot makes for some very uncomfortable reading indeed. Chancery Stone has used this device of arousing/repulsing, often at the same time, to force the reader into being some kind of accomplice and to make sexual compulsion a living breathing addiction rather than something studied Kinsey-like at two removes. It's an astounding work with so much character detail, all revealed solely through dialogue, that you have to read it at least twice to get it all, and even then it haunts you for a long time after. Fabulously original it will some day undoubtedly be credited with creating a brand new genre all of its own (socio-porn perhaps?!). Unmissable.
A Reader - Live Journal
If I may borrow a phrase from Lauren, Jesus fucking Christ on a stick. I just finished all 1013 pages of DANNY and I'm utterly flabbergasted. I'm so confused. I couldn't put it down, but I dreaded it being over. It feels like I ran out of methadone and I'm sweating and swearing and throwing things. Chancery Stone is fucking brilliant. Fucking brilliant. Danny and John. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
A Reader - Live Journal
I think that Chancery Stone is brilliant contemporary writer, DANNY has topped my favorite books and books that I have read more than one or twice (the Horse Whisperer 'was' my absolute favorite, I read it eleven times). Even now that I am reading DANNY with a critical eye, I still can't say whether "she" wrote the characters well or poorly or if they wrote themselves that way. To me, they are no longer her characters, but entities in themselves. I half expect to pass Rab and Mrs. Ostler at the market or Danny and Steven out shopping. I think that's what every writer (probably) wants, for her characters to stand up on their own, live and breathe in the reader's mind. At least, that is what I would want as a writer.
I liked the way she used all the characters' points of view in the same chapter, in the same scene. A lot of authors do a different character's viewpoint (if they even do that at all) in a chapter all its own, so you kind of get three different takes on what thing that happened.
I thought the most interesting was John, of course. He may threaten with bodily harm, manipulate, actually cause bodily injury, or disregard with his cold black eyes, but he always turned up to save the day. He always took care of things. I love the way Stone talks about his eyes. "John"s eyes were black, as bottomless and cold as ice on the seabed." I don't think that I have ever noticed anyone's eyes go through so many changes, have so many things expressed there. But then, I've never been obsessed with anyone or obsessed with anyone whom I lived and worked with everyday of my life. I have heard that eyes are the windows to the soul. John's eyes, clearly are.
At the beginning, when Danny 'runs away', Margaret talks about how John is unbalanced, unstable, but I don't necessarily think that's the case (that's why he's so interesting). He is calculating, manipulative, neurotic, even. From each person's reminiscence, there was a time when things were "good" or at least better than they are currently. It sounds like they might have even liked each other when they were younger-- no scorn or 'much' jealousy.
John is fascinating because he is capable of intimacy (intimacy that we (the readers) see as "normal" or "conventional"), vulnerability and maybe even kindness. Maybe. He's obsessed with Danny, feels entitled to him, that he owns him, he gets off on humiliating him (and when it stops working, the violence escalates) but I think that he might actually love Rab and he thinks that Rab still loves him. Which, I happen to think that Rab actually does still love him (everyone really does love John). Danny, Ian, Steven, etc. is just background noise, a way to get back at John for tossing him aside.
I could go on and on.
So my question is this: pg. 82 (when I started rereading it, I wrote things down that I thought were interesting and their page numbers, haha) John and Margaret are talking about Danny and John says to her "Who practically had to have it explained who he was until he was 12 years old-- and who hasn't been able to keep her hands off him since?" What is he saying? Their lineage is so confusing, there is so many innuendoes, lies, deceit, allusions, I can't keep them straight. Even I don't know when they're lying of when they're telling the truth.
Jodie Rhodes - Hope House Farm, the DANNY Discussion Forum
DANNY is a ridiculously readable book, I think. Every time I read it I still don't want to put it down. I even find myself reaching for it half way through other books if I find them lulling in interest. And, for me, compared to DANNY most books do. I now measure a book's worth on how many times I reach for DANNY during reading. (Look up obsession and you may see a picture of me).
Sharon Wilson - W H SMITH.com
Read this book, if you want to read something that's completely different. Read this book if you want to read something challenging. Read this book if you want a real experience. DANNY is a book that you feel as well as read. This totally absorbing family drama seems to play out in real time. As you read it, you are there, watching the drama unfold. It's new, more than a breath of fresh air, it's like a wind, howling through the annals of literature and blowing the cobwebs away, enthralling, a relentless telling of a hugely powerful story. Chancery Stone should be applauded for jumping into a world of whispered taboos and shouting them out on paper. The content is strictly adult, if easily offended then do not read it, but I imagine the "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" sticker would attract more readers than turn them away! Take what you will from DANNY. A good dirty read, a tale of obsession and lust, or, the tragic story of a family that's self destructing and unable to stop. Read it, and make your own mind up.
Val - Hope House Farm, the DANNY Discussion Forum
DANNY is the future of the modern novel. Why else would it have such a love / hate readership? DANNY cuts away the bullshit of conventional 'literary' novels. It's a story for people who like movies. It reads like a movie, as if it doesn't know that it's supposed to be anything else. DANNY has cut its own groove. Its prose has been stripped bare, it doesn't indulge in the luxury of showing off its word play, there are no pretty metaphors or complex references to show you how clever or how well-read the author is.
It's like a speed reading course of the whole of English literature. We have Seneca, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Kidd, Ford, Webster, Middleton, Bronte, Radcliffe, Huxley, Lee and Updike all rolled into one. All the key elements of tragedy are here, as are doomed loved and obsession, greed, jealousy and anger.
It's like junk food. You want to cram it all in. It revolts you. It turns you on. It turns you on when you know it should revolt you. And it just keeps on going. There is no respite. It's like reading a book about an alcoholic and drinlking four bottles of meths while you read it.
Val - Hope House Farm, the DANNY Discussion Forum
I thought that you might like to hear a quote from my dissertation on "Huxley's Legacy". I made a list of 100 post-Huxley novels that have shaped the form and here's my one-liner on DANNY:
"At first glance DANNY seems to be a throw-back to the Victorian novel with it's thousand-page length and wealth of character detail but on careful reading it is the definitive product of the twenty-first century. The prose is sparse and word-processed to find and remove all superfluous adverbs and it's real-time narrative is reminiscent of the insomniac watching Big Brother in the small hours, sifting through chance conversations to glean small insights into the motivations of the characters. A classic."
Teresa Crawford - by e-mail
I absolutely loved the book! I first saw it in the mag 'Scarlet' in December and thought it sounded very interesting! I bought it as I don't really enjoy 'safe' books! I like to read about things that may well disturb me, and make me think outside the 'norm'.
I found it strange at first, as I have three teenage sons, 20, 18 and 17, and kept thinking that they wouldn't be like the characters in the book in a million years, but why? And the more I read, the more I came to understand the dynamics of that family. I was abused myself as a child, and don't believe that the abused becomes an abuser all the time, but is that a girl 'thing'? I don't know.
My boys would say, are you reading that 'gay' book!! And I would reply that they weren't gay. This then led to a discussion about what is gay? I have not read any male sexual stories before, but I must say the way the book was written was extremely erotic!
I think Chancery Stone is an amazing writer! I listened to music while reading the book and I have a soundtrack in my head now, and when I hear the music I am taken back into the book.
I could gush all day about the book, it was so good!
Joe - Reader Comment, MySpace
Most excellent
Book. Top of my list.
Thank you.
When I read DANNY, I wasn't disappointed for a change.
Cheers
P.S. Still obsessively checking online for word that Volume 2 is available.
