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Feckless, unwashed, charming, penurious Sebastian Balfe Dangerfield, Trinity College Law student, Irish American with an English Accent, maroon in the ould country and dreaming of dollars and ready women, stumbles from the public house to the pawnbrokers, murmuring delusive enticements in the ear of any girl who'll listen, in delirious search of freedom, wealth, and the recognition he feels is his due. Lyrical and ribald, illuminating, poignant and hugely entertaining, The Ginger Man is a work of authentic comic genius. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (68)

Masterpiece!
THE GINGER MAN is the story of a young man, Sebastian Dangerfield, who has very few of the qualities most people would consider civilized.He lies, cheats, steals, beats his wife, neglects his infant daughter, and otherwise makes an ass of himself.Yet, in the end, the reader can not help but love this guy, who never once whined about his sorry condition.When he was on the street, homeless and broke, he just carried on until the next person came along who would freely save him from starvation and a sordid death in the gutter.He survives, on his own terms, and it is this perverse honesty that makes him, well . . . admirable?How the author does this is the mark of a true artist.

Review by The Literate Man (www.literateman.com) posted June 21, 2010
The Ginger Man is perhaps the most eloquent portrait of debauchery ever painted in the English language. And it may just be the greatest American novel that no one has ever heard of. I can only barely read in any language other than English, so I don't really know what they have to say about hedonism. But it's hard to imagine anyone weaving an uglier tale in more beautiful language.

Sebastian Dangerfield is a bad man and behaves accordingly. Shortly after World War II, he finds himself studying at the prestigious Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland. Having squandered his GI Bill money and being miserably wedded with child, he does what any rotten human would do: he abandons his dependants and embarks on a journey of decadent self-indulgence.

Yet, he is a strangely-compelling character who appears more principled in his wickedness than perhaps even the Pope in his righteousness. He is a wastrel of the highest order who at first appalls but soon has the reader weeping in sympathy as his uncompromising mission to find beauty in this life--on his own gluttonous and lusty terms, of course--is revealed.

He takes advantage of women, he steals, he lies, he drinks too much, and he possesses every conceivable carnal vice. He is a person of huge appetites that devours life in breathtaking gulps and gives nothing in return. Yet to a man like Dangerfield these imperfections are what make him beautiful and somewhere along the line Dunleavy seduces us into sympathizing with this with rotten character; more than just sympathize, Dunleavy even brings us to champion this swine for some of the very same reasons we find him so distasteful at beginning of our voyage.

With such a beautiful gift of verse many readers may wonder why J. P. Donleavy didn't devote his powers to do good. Rather than chronicling a beast of a man on his hilarious journey to purgatory, why not use his gift to pen a serious and profound piece--perhaps the next Great American Novel some might ask.

Well, in my mind he has. And that book is The Ginger Man.

Odious, horrible book
Odious. Horrible. Terrible. Avoid at all costs. Where is the "0 Star" rating? Someone please explain how this drivel is a "raucous comic novel" and a classic. Not even slightly amusing. Just pedestrian prose about a sad and violent drunk chasing and beating women and destroying his life.... Book club discussion will be brief, for sure. Everyone has hated it.The New Yorker states: "No contemporary writer is better than Donleavy at his best." Huh?

Hilarious, Witty, and Brilliant!
This book is great!My book club decided to read it because we wanted a good Irish book to review on St Patrick's Day.We were sold on the book when we read a review on Amazon comparing it to Catch 22 and Confederacy of Dunces...two of my favorite books of all time.

The Ginger Man is nothing short of wonderful.It's a hilarious romp through the streets of Ireland all seen through the eyes of Sebastian Dangerfield. Sebastian is an American living in Ireland post WWII, and he will stop at nothing to bed women, drink booze, and not pay his bills!!Sebastian has absolutely no desire to find a job or settle down.He always ends up on his feet, and his view of the world is smart and poignant.

JP Donleavy's writing is brilliant. He doesn't spoon feed the story to us, he writes with a combination of 1st Person and 3rd Person point of view and he switches between the two in the middle of a sentence sometimes.This book is a piece of literature and should be enjoyed by future generations to come

Wild and Lusty
Three hundred forty seven pages of mayhem. About the moral degradation of one Sebastian Dangerfield, a rake from hell and St. Louis, who is supposed to be studying law in Dublin, on the G. I. Bill. He is a a cad with women, a con artist, deadbeat, philanderer, boozer and brawler--not a very likeable bloke.

This book is an entertaining read and very funny at times, but a bit low on redeeming social value. Stream of consciousness, with occasional lapses into surrealism. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

review
the book was in excellent condition, even better than what the seller labeled it as.
it came very quickly too ... Read more

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In a world without day or night, a young noblewoman embarks on a perilous journey of faith and love, to fulfill the ancient prophesy of the return of the Phoenix - partner of Gods, overlord of time, guardian of order. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Rise of the Phoenix, a review by garrie keyman
The Rise of the Phoenix
By Dawn Rivers Baker

Fine can describe a number of things. There are fine wines, fine chocolates and fine china, all treasures characterized by elegance and refinement. Fine constitutes a work of superior quality and skill: something free from impurities. An article of fine craftsmanship, then, is one exhibiting a careful and delicate artistry: an end product rendered with both subtlety and precision.

Before I read Rise of the Phoenix by Dawn Rivers Baker, fine would not have been a term I readily assigned to literature. Oh, yes, indeed to Shakespeare, to Kahlil Gibran, but never before to a modern work of fantasy.

To my mind, rising to the level of fine requires a work of literature to be a luxury: a work so delicious that I want to savor it alone in the quiet evening hours after the children have gone to bed. I crave the time, the space, the privacy to leisurely float through it as though swimming in a sea of liquid pearls ... naked. A fine work is one I could never settle for reading once. What's more, it is one that begs to be read aloud at times, just for the sheer pleasure of tasting the well-turned phrase as it lolls across the palate.

In this, and more, Rise of the Phoenix delivers.

But the satisfaction of Phoenix runs far deeper than its poetic constructs. It is an engaging tale of memorable characters struggling against the ultimate dark force of their world, an evil powerful enough to blind the mind and impel good people to heinous acts and indifference. In that, the dark force of Baker's universe is frighteningly real.

Meet Lady Dia of Shae, a young noble of intelligence, independence, culture and subtle rebel leanings, who embarks on her first journey to Ormaerand, seat of the Imperial Palace, in an attempt to re-establish her mind link with her twin brother, Daerus. It would seem, since Daerus's own departure for the Imperial Palace, the link that Dia had enjoyed with him since birth has been inexplicably dimmed, shadowed over by something she cannot comprehend. He has called to her, and only by seeking him out and discerning his situation can she hope to set aright whatever it is that has come between her and her beloved twin.

It is a dangerous and vulnerable time in which Dia travels, a time between ages in a world where ages are marked by the rise and fall of the Phoenix. He is the keeper of time and central to a religion that has fallen from favor with most of the other Houses, save that of Shae. Until the Phoenix rises once again, time is practically at a stand still. Days have become years. A year of frigid darkness has ended as Dia makes her way through a new dawn toward Ormaerand. It is a dawn that will slowly yield to months of relentless sun that will bake the earth dry.

At the Palace, Dia encounters pivotal characters in the persons of Caelon of Aerandos and his parents, whose warm relationships and interplay are delightfully penned by Baker. But almost as soon as she arrives, Dia is besieged by the same darkness threatening to sweep her brother from reach. She discovers that only one grace tethers her to the ability to remain self-possessed: the touch of Caelon's hand.

Without understanding, Dia nevertheless clings to this realization and quickly forges a courtly arrangement with Caelon (replete with playful underpinnings) wherein he is to take her hand in greeting whenever they should meet. His comprehension no clearer than hers, he happily obliges. She does not immediately confide in him that, for some reason, his touch is imbued with the power to clear her mind of the evil fog that threatens to overtake her daily, and the more insistently so the longer she remains in the Palace.

The Rise of the Phoenix is the tale of this couple's coming to understand the roles they are playing in a larger arena: the stage upon which good and evil do ultimate battle. It is at once an adventure, a romance, and a work of high fantasy peopled with richly drawn characters and neatly packaged in the flourish of Dawn Rivers Baker's riveting voice.

The Rise of the Phoenix is a rare find, a work too good to place upon a shelf. Now that I have relished it, it remains by my desk where I sneak a tidbit whenever I hunger for something beyond the meat-and-potato realm of most reading. After all, Hershey's chocolate bars are unstintingly shared with the masses, but a Godiva Chocolate is a jealously guarded treat. So go ahead. Indulge yourself. Read The Rise of the Phoenix and taste the difference.

An impressive and engaging debut novel
The Rise Of The Phoenix is an impressive and engaging debut novel by Dawn Rivers Baker about the impending fate of an Empire, the dark force that menaces it, and the Prophecy surrounding two fraternal twins caught in the twists and machinations of grand schemes. A transcendent and splendor-filled work of high fantasy, The Rise Of The Phoenix is vividly descriptive and complexly woven, filled with intrigue throughout, and enthusiastically recommended reading. ... Read more

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Monthly publication ... Read more