He's not a household name, but real fans of suspense know and revere Herbert Lieberman as one of the most original and stunning writers in the history of the field.
Many know Lieberman for the searing City of the Dead, the gruesome story of a really bad week in the life of the NYC Chief Medical Examiner. Crawlspace was made into a memorable '70s TV movie. His serial killer novels may not feature a character as iconic as Thomas Harris's most famous creation, but frankly I think Lieberman is the better writer.
My favorite of his thrillers is The Eighth Square, a diabolical puzzle of a novel that would make Ira Levin green with envy.
I used to see Herbert Lieberman's debut novel listed in his books, but it was elusive. I finally got my hands on an ex-library edition of The Adventures of Dolphin Green.
Lieberman took a sharp turn with his fiction after This first book. The Adventures of Dolphin Green is a literary novel with nary a murder in sight.
It's easy to compare a modern literary novel to John Irving. I do it as often as I compare horror stories to Stephen King. The Adventures of Dolphin Green is especially applicable. It deals with a literary-minded young man working at a hotel in New Hampshire. Let the record speak: The Adventures of Dolphin Green was published in 1967, a full year before Irving's first book came out.
Adolph isn't the best name for a young man in the mid-twentieth century. Rather than shorten his name to Dolph, Adolph Green is nicknamed Dolphin Green. Left to fend for himself in the world with no resources after his failed writer father dies, Dolphin finds lowly work at a luxury hotel. He winds up in the personal employ of the family patriarch. Jacob Jasper is eccentric, bawdy, dirty, violent, and about to be institutionalized by his unscrupulous heirs. Dolphin winds up an unwilling pawn in the family struggle for ownership of the estate.
The Adventures of Dolphin Green is rich in language and earthy in tone. There is considerable ribald humor worthy of Gerald Kersh. The story deals with weighty issues like life, death, honor, passion, and loyalty. It's a great novel in the sense that Dickens wrote great books.
It almost makes me wish Herbert Lieberman had continued to write this kind of novel. I don't think The Adventures of Dolphin Green was a big seller, but then John Irving's Setting Free the Bears didn't exactly set the world on fire either. Had Lieberman continued in this vein he may have had a breakthrough the way Irving did with The World According to Garp.
I'm not complaining. If Lieberman had not turned to the thriller, we'd have been denied books like Nightbloom and The Climate of Hell. In which case my reading life would be poorer.
I can't say whether Dolphin Green is my favorite of Lieberman's books, because it is so radically different than his later works. Suffice to say it is one of the very best books I've read so far this decade.
Written by Mark Sieber
Many know Lieberman for the searing City of the Dead, the gruesome story of a really bad week in the life of the NYC Chief Medical Examiner. Crawlspace was made into a memorable '70s TV movie. His serial killer novels may not feature a character as iconic as Thomas Harris's most famous creation, but frankly I think Lieberman is the better writer.
My favorite of his thrillers is The Eighth Square, a diabolical puzzle of a novel that would make Ira Levin green with envy.
I used to see Herbert Lieberman's debut novel listed in his books, but it was elusive. I finally got my hands on an ex-library edition of The Adventures of Dolphin Green.
Lieberman took a sharp turn with his fiction after This first book. The Adventures of Dolphin Green is a literary novel with nary a murder in sight.
It's easy to compare a modern literary novel to John Irving. I do it as often as I compare horror stories to Stephen King. The Adventures of Dolphin Green is especially applicable. It deals with a literary-minded young man working at a hotel in New Hampshire. Let the record speak: The Adventures of Dolphin Green was published in 1967, a full year before Irving's first book came out.
Adolph isn't the best name for a young man in the mid-twentieth century. Rather than shorten his name to Dolph, Adolph Green is nicknamed Dolphin Green. Left to fend for himself in the world with no resources after his failed writer father dies, Dolphin finds lowly work at a luxury hotel. He winds up in the personal employ of the family patriarch. Jacob Jasper is eccentric, bawdy, dirty, violent, and about to be institutionalized by his unscrupulous heirs. Dolphin winds up an unwilling pawn in the family struggle for ownership of the estate.
The Adventures of Dolphin Green is rich in language and earthy in tone. There is considerable ribald humor worthy of Gerald Kersh. The story deals with weighty issues like life, death, honor, passion, and loyalty. It's a great novel in the sense that Dickens wrote great books.
It almost makes me wish Herbert Lieberman had continued to write this kind of novel. I don't think The Adventures of Dolphin Green was a big seller, but then John Irving's Setting Free the Bears didn't exactly set the world on fire either. Had Lieberman continued in this vein he may have had a breakthrough the way Irving did with The World According to Garp.
I'm not complaining. If Lieberman had not turned to the thriller, we'd have been denied books like Nightbloom and The Climate of Hell. In which case my reading life would be poorer.
I can't say whether Dolphin Green is my favorite of Lieberman's books, because it is so radically different than his later works. Suffice to say it is one of the very best books I've read so far this decade.
Written by Mark Sieber
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