So Far Gone

by Paul Cody

Book Overview

A haunting, disturbing book about the life of a man on Massachusetts' death row Jack Connor is on death row for murdering his father, mother, and grandmother, and he is scheduled to be the first... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312181809
• ISBN13: 9780312181802
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

High schools students thoughts

If Jack Conners existed the sight of his face splashed across television screens would be enough to instill fear in the heart of most Americans . Killing ones mother , father and grandmother are considered horrific even to the most feeble of minds . But after reading the book So Far Gone by Paul Cody you see that in this case Conners is as well the victim . In the first chapter we are introduced to the narrator , a man by the name of Jack Conners . He is in his late 30's and grew up in Newton , Massachusetts . But when we first hear from him he is sitting in a maximum security prison on death row . A priest who visits Conners every few days , a Father Curran , has told Jack that he need s to write about what happened . " Put down everything from as far back and no matter how unimportant and every scrap and shred and shard . And from that , piece by piece by piece , maybe something , some pattern or picture or thing will begin to emerge , Like something you heard whispered way back because he said , what happens in May , what they will do after we walk slowly down the halls and through metal doors , past people who look on with a kind of awe , and into the room with blinds on the windows and seats in the other side for people to watch , what they will do is erase all of that , and there will be nothing here for us anymore , Only a long slience . A great loneliness "( Cody 3 ) Jack is a abused child , who is left with mant emotional scars . He is mistreated and unloved by his family . This makes for perfect drama within the book . Paul Cody uses suspense and ingenuity to create this masterpiece . Cody uses the mind of a killer to make us all look within ourselves and wonder.

Good book for those with time .

I am a high schooler in Vermont , and I am reading this book for a english class. We had to chose a book where the main person was forimg his or her identity . This boook is a very complicated book . Which takes time to understand . I really enjoyed this book though . It was very insightful and I highly recomend it .

An absolute stunner by a major writing talent

Paul Cody first came to my attention through his short story work which I read in Story Magazine. Cody is a magnificent writer capable of transporting the reader directly into the experience of this sad and lost character. It is impossible to feel hate for this "criminal" once his horrific childhood is revealed. This adresses the timely issue of child abuse in a manner so real and terrifying that I felt moved to tears many times while reading this book. I am very picky about my writers and heap on adulations very rarely but I must say that this is one of the four or five best written books I've ever read. A truly overpowering experience. First-rate all the way!

An extraordinary achievement

This is an extraordinary achievement by a writer of substantive talent. Well-written, but a difficult read, since Mr. Cody takes the reader right to the heart of darkness in the soul of his protagonist. Withal, this a book that, once begun, simply cannot be laid down. Each succeeding chapter adds crucial insights into what makes Jack Connor tick, and how he came- seemingly inevitably- to be the executioner of his family. I found the most remarkable aspect of this story to be the real sympathy one develops for Connor, as the elements of madness, self-absorption, and dysfunction within his family circle unfold. A work whose characters and insights will stay with me for some time. Highly recommended.

Like Kafka

Paul Cody's writing in So Far Gone reminds me of Kafka. The subject of the story, Jack Connor, lives in a psychic version of a hermetically selaed Ames room. In the house where Jack grows up, a walk down two flights of staits can become an odyssey. Everything that Jack takes in is a re-circulation of his family's exhalations. As his parents and grandmother's love and indifference and self-absorption and hate of self and those around them randomly fill Jack, the emotional distortions of their lives mutate one more time in his. In many ways, Cody's writing is centered on examining the powerful magnetism of the familiar. Both doped up Jack and his drunken father make attempts to escape the suffocation in their lives by leaving the house and wandering off, but neither ever manages to get farther than several weeks or several thousand miles away before the malign magnetism draws them back. Cody knows and writes to our hidden selves. He has a way of tearing open an attic hatch or crashing through the basement door. My conscious self finished So Far Gone feeling like I was covered in cowwebs and dying for a breath of fresh air. However, even after a week, my nightmind is still wandering around, with Jack, looking for home. I don't believe in scoring books or authors like the participants. So Far Gone is a finely written and emtionally wrenching story by a hellaciously talented writer.