Menace both real and imagined haunt two Dubliners in this “unsettling... seductive” modern Gothic “that ultimately leaves one gasping” (Irish Times). “Vampires, secrets, the mysteries of identity: the obsessions that run through the director Neil Jordan's films are at the center of his beautifully enigmatic novel... of two look-alike men who feed off each other's souls all their crisscrossed lives” (The New York Times). Kevin Thunder and Gerald Spain have grown up on opposite sides of the Dublin economic divide. Kevin's father is a bookie and his mother takes in lodgers on the city's impoverished northside. Gerald, a lawyer's son, is afforded a more well-heeled upbringing. Yet they share a growing awareness of each other through episodes of mistaken identity. At first, innocent enough—one approached by the other's confused girlfriend, or being called out to in the street. But Kevin is unnerved by more than a doppelganger. He lives next door to the one-time home of Bram Stoker. And the shadows of the author's evil creation, as well as those cast by a lookalike stranger, stretch far across his early years. It's only when a tragic death sends both young men down a darker path, that Kevin and Gerald are destined to meet. A “beautifully enigmatic... darkly luminous” (The New York Times Book Review) thriller, Mistaken is also “the best novel I've read about Dublin in years” (The Independent).
“I had been mistaken for him so many times that when I heard he had died it was as if part of myself had died too.” So begins Mistaken, the new bestselling novel from the master of gothic fiction, Neil Jordan.
Kevin and Gerald were two boys growing up on opposite sides of the Dublin economic divide. Though they had never met, they shared a growing awareness of each other through episodes of mistaken identity. Yet Kevin was doubly haunted, living next door to the one-time residence of Bram Stoker, and the shadow of both a vampire and Gerald stretch far across his early years. For a time, the boys’ doppelganger paths would cross innocently enough—one stealing the other’s unwitting girlfriend, or being called out to in the streetuntil a family tragedy sends them both down a much darker path.
“Mistaken comes complete with a plot as precise and as crafted as that of the finest thriller, filtered through an insistent narrative voice that holds the stricken reader as if at gunpoint. For all the revelation and the anger, it is the writing, the linguistic artistry that ultimately leaves one gasping. Be warned: this is a great international novel, a great Irish novel and, most of all, a great Dublin novel that thoughtfully heeds Joyce and then breaks free the way a child eventually shrugs off even the most loving and beloved of parents.” ¬Irish Times
"Kevin and Gerald were two boys growing up on opposite sides of the Dublin economic divide. Though they had never met, they shared a growing awareness of each other through episodes of mistaken identity. Yet Kevin was doubly haunted, living next door to the one-time residence of Bram Stoker, and the shadow of both a vampire and Gerald stretch far across his early years. For a time, the boys' doppelganger paths would cross innocently enough--one stealing the other's unwitting girlfriend, or being called out to in the street--until a family tragedy sends them both down a much darker path."--Page 4 of cover I had been mistaken for him so many times that when he died it was as if part of myself had died too. Kevin Thunder grew up with a double a boy so uncannily like him that they were mistaken for each other at every turn.
