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    Bob Stevenson
    Bob Stevenson
    Bob Stevenson
    Ebook219 pages3 hours

    Bob Stevenson

    By Richard Wiley

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A witty, roller-coaster ride of uncertain identity set against the gritty certainties of New York City. In compelling, unadorned prose, Richard Wiley gives us a bewitching and ultimately moving tale.” Caryl Phillips, author of A Distant Shore and The Lost Child

    Dr. Ruby Okada meets a charming man with a Scottish accent in the elevator of her psychiatric hospital. Unaware that he is an escaping patient, she falls under his spell, and her life and his are changed forever by the time they get to the street.

    Who is the mysterious man? Is he Archie B. Billingsly, suffering from dissociative identity disorder and subject to brilliant flights of fancy and bizarre, violent fits? Or is he the reincarnation of Robert Louis Stevenson, back to haunt New York as Long John Silver and Mr. Edward Hyde? Her career compromised, Ruby soon learns that her future and that of her unborn child depend on finding the key to his identity.

    With compelling psychological descriptions and terrifying, ineffable transformations, Bob Stevenson is an ingenious tale featuring a quirky cast of characters drawn together by mutual fascination, need, and finally, love.

    Richard Wiley is the author of eight novels including Soldiers in Hiding, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and Ahmed’s Revenge, winner of the Maria Thomas Fiction Award. Professor emeritus at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he divides his time between Los Angeles, California and Tacoma, Washington.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBellevue Literary Press
    Release dateSep 19, 2016
    ISBN9781942658177
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    Reviews for Bob Stevenson

    3.5/5

    22 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I'm approaching my 300th book of the year (It's Sept.) and I bet I haven't given a dozen books five stars. But Bob Stevenson deserves it. Heck, I'd probably give it five stars for Gerard alone, who has to be the cutest, most genuine character I've read in a while. He was a true pleasure to read and I adored the way people accepted him into their lives and loved him too.But the rest of the characters were of interest as well. Ruby, who finds herself in a baffling and embarrassing situation. Archie/Bob who is fighting his own demons. Dr. Utterson and Bette, who provide the necessary sidekicks, along with Dad and the nun. All engaging in their own way. Granted, you never get to know them deeply, but they fulfill their role succinctly. The writing is marvelous. I laughed repeatedly at the dry humor. The fact that you're never wholly sure where the surreal stops and the actual paranormal might pick up kept me biting my nails. Lastly, I was thrilled to see non-white main characters and people successfully functioning with disabilities. All in all, a real winner for me.
    • 2/5
      I received this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review... It took 40 days to finish this book. I just couldn't connect with the characters, the premise was different but left nowhere for the story to go. I am thankful I have turned the last page.
    • 2/5
      I received a free advanced copy of this book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I didn't really enjoy this book. It was okay and quite short, so I was able to finish it before I felt like it wasn't worth my time. And honestly, it's short length is one of my complaints even though I wasn't fully absorbed into the book. I felt that it was incredibly rushed and could have benefited from more length. Part of my discomfort with it was that so much happened in approximately 200 (small) pages. It needed to be much longer to accommodate everything it did. It also needed some extra explanation, I thought. The book began in medias res and hardly ever provided flashbacks or background information to allow the reader to know how everyone got there.I also felt that the author forced words out of his character's mouths that weren't fitting. They often said things that were deep and profound and cryptic. This is okay here and there, but it was so frequent that the dialogue truly felt unrealistic to me much of the time.The idea, however, is a good one and that was enough to keep me reading. I wouldn't say this book was terrible, by any means. It just wasn't for me. I probably won't pass it along, either, but there's a chance that I will encounter someone with whom I think it fits.
    • 4/5
      Bob Stevenson is a clever engaging kaleidoscopic romp into a world that feels fresh and newly created complete with a cast of engaging quirky characters draw you in. Author Richard Wiley unceremoniously dumps into the middle of this world, leaving you breathless and running to catch up. It’s not unpleasant but rather giddy and wild, and so you must say yes, okay, and dive into the middle of the tumult.Ruby Okada is a psychiatrist who meets an affable if off-beat Scottish bloke at the elevators of the hospital where she works. The ensuing conversation is so original and inventive it sparks from the page. Four pages later, she’s pregnant and resigning from the hospital, and you’re still running to catch up.You do. You will. But you have to hang on.The characters in this book are not only three dimensional, but four. Quirky and human and fun. There’s the lovely Ruby who keeps expanding to bursting until the child is finally born; the delightful Gerard who has Down’s syndrome and is as tall as he is wide coming equipped with wondrous and fitting expressions; Ruby’s friend and colleague Bette who is as down to earth as Ruby is airy; the lawyer and British gent Utterson derived as are many of the characters you will meant from Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruby’s father, an avant-garde artist, and, of course, Bob/Archie and his long parade of Stevenson characters such as Jekyll and Hyde and the amalgam Henry Hyde as well as Long John Silver and a personal favorite of mine, young Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island.This book is bursting with literary allusions that will take you back to your childhood and make you feel smart because you remember them; and it’s filled with wonderful heart-warming characters that burst from the pages, and wild incidents that leave you breathless. You turn the pages to see what will happen next to this crazy cast of colorful people tossed into this rushing river you’ve dipped into.And herein lies the problem.Because as enchanting as this creation is, as grateful as you are to have been swept away by this zany fever—you start asking yourself…and?Packed into this little book—and it is little – smaller than most paperbacks and a mere 219 pages is an enormous hunk of humanity—and not without the woes – much like Dickens’s ghosts and abandoned children. For Bob/Archie Billingsly, we learn, comes from a lifetime of pain. Ruby fell deeply in love with Bob – but Bob is gone—disappeared somewhere inside Archie’s madness. Or is it madness? Is it dissociative disorder—once known as multiple personality disorder, or is it an elaborate escape mechanism.As clever and inviting as Wiley makes the characters and the incidents and the allusions, I wanted, finally, to see the human story. He is quite successful with this as regards Gerard. But he skims past the love story of Ruby and Bob. One moment they are engaging in perhaps one of the best written first conversations I have ever read and the next it is seven months later and she is pregnant, without a job, and abandoned. Huh? They spent three weeks together. I would have liked to have seen, felt, tasted, known that love. Without that—I don’t know quite what to root for.The same holds true for Bob/Archie. We are given an idea of a lonely abusive childhood. But who was Bob? Who was Bob in love? And who is Archie? I don’t want to do a spoiler – but we spend a long time to come to an inevitable end—and I was left certain, but unmoved. Glad, but without a pulse quickening. Having said that – buy this book. It is worth the journey. Beautifully, simply written. Fun, wild, crazy. A journey back to the best of your childhood. And with characters—both Stevenson’s and Wiley’s you will never forget.
    • 1/5
      Read about a third of it and skipped to the last chapter. Just couldn't stand it. No character development, boring characters, manipulative boring plot, confusing. So sorry - maybe I should have given it more of a chance but it was just so tedious.
    • 5/5
      I received an ARC of this book through LibraryThing. This is a short book, an easy read, but it is still packed full of turns and interesting characters. Psychiatrist Ruby meets a charming Scottish man in her building and they begin to date. Then things quickly change as Ruby finds herself pregnant and in a new home given to her by Archie B. Billingsly, the real man behind the man she met at the elevator, or is he? This book takes a dive into the world of dissociative identity disorder from the perspective of Ruby and the others around - her friend from the office, Archie's attorney, Gerad a high functioning Down's Syndrome man who the attorney has befriended, Ruby's father, and a nun. The more Ruby learns about Archie/Bob and the others who live within him the more determined she is to find the real man behind it all. This story really doesn't leave any character behind, none really felt like secondary characters at any point to me. It did take me on a ride of emotions as well. I had moments of laughter and others of sadness. The ride into what possibly triggered the DID was filled with ups and downs as well. A great read that gives some great characters.

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    Bob Stevenson - Richard Wiley

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