From Publishers Weekly
The "whack, whack, whack" of the flapping flag on his neighbor's property keeps middle-aged college academic Darius Halloway awake at night. So he sneaks out in darkness and cuts the flag's rope. When another neighbor's dogs disturb his concentration, Darius poisons them, and when, at a resort hotel, he's bothered by the noise of a neighbor's air conditioner, he climbs a ladder and stuffs a glue-soaked sock into the machine's works. Self-absorbed, prone to paranoia and obsession, enamored of young women and fine wine, Darius is the brilliantly constructed protagonist and coolly lucid narrator of this new, excellent novel from Canadian writer Gilmour (Lost Between Houses). Darius's extreme responses to life condense into his erotic longing for Emma Carpenter, a young, equally impulsive graduate student whom he carries on with for a few years before she dumps him. The ditching spins Darius into a wallow of self-pity, which he alleviates momentarily via a visit to a massage parlor, where he meets a black woman named Passion, whom he invites to his house. When Passion takes him up on the offer, she robs him; when he later confronts her, he's beaten by her pimp. The next day, the pimp comes calling and Darius shoots him dead, then hacks up the body and burns it in his furnace all this perfectly justifiable to this unbearably pretentious professor of French lit, who, moments after disposing of the body, savors hearing "the opening, almost inquisitive notes of the Concierto de Aranjuez." Like Jerzy Kosinski, Gilmour is able to carry readers deep into the mind of a self-rationalizing madman; it's an exhilarating journey, expertly observed and quite disturbing. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This is the story of one man's descent into obsession. Darius Halloway, a respected professor of French literature, falls in love with an eccentric young woman named Emma Carpenter. Together they explore the limits of passion and desire, but when she breaks off the affair, his life spins out of control. He finds himself conceiving and carrying out a series of revenge fantasies against neighbors and casual acquaintances, culminating in an encounter with a masseuse and her criminal-minded boyfriend that nearly ends in his death. In the macabre conclusion, the book offers a glimpse of redemption for its hero. Gilmour is a Toronto-based writer whose previous novel, Lost Between Houses, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award. His latest is sure to solidify his reputation as an edgy, intelligent author. This work offers a great deal of mordant wit, and the writing is consistently first-rate, layering memory, inner monolog, and fast-paced action. Recommended for all collections. Philip Santo, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Canadian novelist Gilmour has been widely praised for his previous work, which includes How Boys See Girls (1991) and Lost between Houses (1999). His current novel features another of his continually intoxicated, terminally adolescent middle-aged narrators. Self-destructive French literature professor Darius Halloway is in an emotional tailspin. His lascivious, much younger girlfriend has just broken up with him. Wracked by hangovers, insomnia, and depression, he starts taking antidepressants, but they don't seem to work. Bothered by the yapping of his neighbors' dogs, he concocts an elaborate scheme of revenge that culminates in their death by poison. He begins frequenting massage parlors, even inviting one of the "masseuses" to his home, where she proceeds to steal him blind. Things only get worse from there. Gilmour is a fine writer with a sardonic sense of humor, but black comedy is difficult to pull off and, depending on one's own sense of humor, this novel could provoke more grimaces than laughs. David Gates (Jernigan, 1991; and Preston Falls, 1998) works the same territory to better effect. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
?With Sparrow Nights, David Gilmour joins the list of inspired modern monologists that begins with Dostoevsky and includes Sartre, Camus, Beckett, Thomas Bernhard and Céline.... [Gilmour] is a brilliant stylist capable of an extraordinary range of effects.? -- Boston Review

?[B]racing and original.? -- The Standard (St. Catharine?s)

?[A]s engaging as anything he?s written?. Gilmour is not one to shrink from the sordid aspects of sex and death, and that he can spin such a tale with wit and economy of phrase is a tribute to his storytelling skill.? -- Winnipeg Free Press

?[A] testament to Gilmour?s writing and narrative pacing that he keeps us at the just right distance, repelled yet fascinated.? -- The Hamilton Spectator

?Elegantly written?. [Gilmour] writes with a smart, unpretentious appreciation of women?. He succeeds with wit, thoughtfulness and aplomb.? -- The Vancouver Sun

?In his latest novel, Sparrow Nights, David Gilmour has created a classic or textbook anti-hero?. And, as always, Gilmour writes in a clear, concise, lapidary prose. In a literary landscape littered with victims, interlarded with heroes, it is refreshing, for once, to spend time with a character as unrepentant as he is unpleasant; a real bad egg.? -- David Eddie, National Post

?Gilmour ? is a clever craftsman. Carefully written and loaded with irony, Sparrow Nights succeeds?. Ultimately what makes this novel work is what makes it disturbing -- it's that there could be a little Professor Halloway in us all.? -- The Gazette (Montreal)

?What miracles good writing can achieve?. Sparrow Nights proves it belongs to the best forms of literature.? -- The Globe and Mail

??witty and darkly comical?? -- Books In Canada

?Gilmour is a fine writer with a sardonic sense of humour?? -- Booklist

?Like Jerzy Kosinski, Gilour is able to carry readers deep into the mind of a self-rationalizing madman; it?s an exhilarating journey, expertly observed and quite disturbing.? -- Publishers Weekly

?[Gilmour?s] latest is sure to solidify his reputation as an edgy, intelligent author. This work offers a great deal of mordant wit, and the writing is consistently first-rate, layering memory, inner monolog, and fast-paced action. Recommended for all collections.? -- Library Journal

?Gilmour's prose has flashes of bright metaphor, and his dialogue is alert and alive. Darius is a believable aesthete -- he's consumed with status, the impression he's making and the gnawing power of the past.? -- New York Times Review

?Canadian novelist David Gilmour?s mordantly hilarious and dazzlingly written new novel, Sparrow Nights, falls solidly in this tradition, but it does not simply ring the changes. Even as Gilmour provides some of the familiar satisfactions -- a caustically articulate narrator à la Humbert Humbert and an increasingly bleak and dangerous series of humiliating misadventures -- he also manages to put a new twist or two into it?. In spite of everything, the reader is likely to be as captivated by the sound of Halloway?s voice as Halloway himself is. Halloway may be a major-league jackass, not to mention a vandal and worse, but he?s a hugely entertaining one. As Humbert Humbert used to say, you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.? -- The Washington Post


Book Description
After she leaves you, how bad can it get? An exhilarating novel of erotic and psychotic extremes from one of Canada's best novelists. Everyone would agree that Darius Halloway is the most civilized of men--a professor of French literature, a connoisseur of ideas and women and wine, a perfect guest at life's dinner party. Darius himself would agree--that is, he would until Emma, waifish and insatiable Emma, leaves her empty clothes hangers rattling in his closet and walks out the door. For a little while, it's not so bad. He's in shock. He thinks she must come back. And other women find his melancholy quite compelling. But then the sparrows of insomnia start picking at the inside of his skull. And life's little aggravating moments seem to require him to seek direct retaliation. And all his smoothness and cleverness is soon directed toward wreaking the most elaborate revenge...and getting away with it. Until the ultimate revenge arises, and there he is, in the most damning of situations, with his nerves on fire and his heart in his throat...and finally not thinking of Emma.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Everyone would agree that Darius Halloway was the most civilized of men, a professor of French literature, a connoisseur of ideas and women and wine, a perfect guest at life's dinner party. Darius himself would have especially agreed ... until Emma, waifish and insatiable Emma, leaves her empty clothes hangers rattling in his closet and walks out the door." For a little while, it's not so bad. He's in shock. He thinks she will come back. Other women find his melancholy quite compelling, and there are compensations to be had. But then the sparrows of insomnia start picking at the inside of his skull. Life's little aggravating moments suddenly seem to require him to seek direct retaliation. Soon, all his smoothness and cleverness is directed toward wreaking the most elaborate revenge - until the ultimate act of revenge is upon him, and there he is, in the most damning of situations, with his nerves on fire and his heart in his throat ... and finally not thinking of Emma.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The "whack, whack, whack" of the flapping flag on his neighbor's property keeps middle-aged college academic Darius Halloway awake at night. So he sneaks out in darkness and cuts the flag's rope. When another neighbor's dogs disturb his concentration, Darius poisons them, and when, at a resort hotel, he's bothered by the noise of a neighbor's air conditioner, he climbs a ladder and stuffs a glue-soaked sock into the machine's works. Self-absorbed, prone to paranoia and obsession, enamored of young women and fine wine, Darius is the brilliantly constructed protagonist and coolly lucid narrator of this new, excellent novel from Canadian writer Gilmour (Lost Between Houses). Darius's extreme responses to life condense into his erotic longing for Emma Carpenter, a young, equally impulsive graduate student whom he carries on with for a few years before she dumps him. The ditching spins Darius into a wallow of self-pity, which he alleviates momentarily via a visit to a massage parlor, where he meets a black woman named Passion, whom he invites to his house. When Passion takes him up on the offer, she robs him; when he later confronts her, he's beaten by her pimp. The next day, the pimp comes calling and Darius shoots him dead, then hacks up the body and burns it in his furnace all this perfectly justifiable to this unbearably pretentious professor of French lit, who, moments after disposing of the body, savors hearing "the opening, almost inquisitive notes of the Concierto de Aranjuez." Like Jerzy Kosinski, Gilmour is able to carry readers deep into the mind of a self-rationalizing madman; it's an exhilarating journey, expertly observed and quite disturbing. (May 1) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This is the story of one man's descent into obsession. Darius Halloway, a respected professor of French literature, falls in love with an eccentric young woman named Emma Carpenter. Together they explore the limits of passion and desire, but when she breaks off the affair, his life spins out of control. He finds himself conceiving and carrying out a series of revenge fantasies against neighbors and casual acquaintances, culminating in an encounter with a masseuse and her criminal-minded boyfriend that nearly ends in his death. In the macabre conclusion, the book offers a glimpse of redemption for its hero. Gilmour is a Toronto-based writer whose previous novel, Lost Between Houses, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award. His latest is sure to solidify his reputation as an edgy, intelligent author. This work offers a great deal of mordant wit, and the writing is consistently first-rate, layering memory, inner monolog, and fast-paced action. Recommended for all collections. Philip Santo, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews