DNF at 22%


Ultimately, it just was not something I enjoyed. I couldn’t get into the story and the writing was a little too info dumpy for my liking! I know so many people have loved this book, I’m sad to say I’m not one of them!

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I cannot even put into words what this book is. It was so good. It was like a deep feverdream of crazy.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory
glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

Great writing

America has always been fertile ground for those with … unconventional ideas. That fertility ebbs and flows, to be sure, with one of the high points – perhaps THE high point – being the middle of the 20th century. The odd energy of the post-war period manifested itself in a tendency for people to search for enlightenment in new ways. And once the notion of ETs and UFOs entered the picture, well – things got weird.

People didn’t understand … and people who don’t understand can be dangerous.

That weirdness and its generational aftermath, for those inside and outside alike, serve as the foundation of Brian Castleberry’s debut novel “Nine Shiny Objects.” This novel-in-stories of sorts takes a long look at the America of the latter half of the 20th century, viewing it through the lens of a short-lived fringe group of UFO fanatics and the traumatic fallout of the years following its collapse.

By following a variety of individuals via their connections to the group, we bear witness as the booming postwar years give way to the counterculture ‘60s, the hedonistic ‘70s and the go-go ‘80s. But even with the growing generational remove, all of the people we encounter bear the psychological repercussions springing from the too-brief life of that initial collective while also dealing with a changing America.

In June of 1947, a failed actor-turned-pool hustler named Oliver Barnville is directionless in Chicago. A lost soul, casting about for something – anything – that might give his life meaning. When he first sees the sensational headlines about the sighting of nine pulsing, moving lights in the sky over the Cascade Mountains. These lights were moving with purpose and at speeds that far exceeded any known aircraft. Oliver sees this story as a sign, and immediately sticks out his thumb and (literally) heads for the hills. Along the way, he meets an Idaho farmer named Saul Penrod and his family, making what was once a solitary quest into a different sort of journey – a journey in which some would follow while others would lead.

Thus are born the Seekers, a collective of outsiders and oddballs looking for something and willing to look to the sky in order to find it. These square pegs sought to eliminate the divisions among humans, eschewing commons prejudices with regards to ethnicity or gender or race – the sort of free thinking that was viewed with considerable suspicion by mainstream America. But when the Seekers’ efforts to wade into that mainstream take a tragic turn, the fracturing moment sends ripples through the years that follow. The horrible tragedy at its center impacts the futures of those who were there and the generations thereafter.

The ones we meet over the course of the ensuing decades are a disparate group: a scholar; a waitress; a traveling salesman; a paranoid radio host; a struggling poet; a hedonistic rock star; a painter; and a troubled teenager. We meet them all as the years pass, their connections to the Seekers’ utopian beginning and violent end tethering them all to one another in ways both overt and subtle. Through their individual stories, the larger narrative of what actually happened to the Seekers – and why – is told. And as that larger narrative is assembled, we also see American evolution, the changes in societal attitudes and ideologies, the slow swing of the political pendulum – writ large.

All of it in the afterglow of nine shiny objects.

“Nine Shiny Objects” is an intriguing work of fiction. Each of these pieces offers a compelling and sometimes heartbreaking character study, a look at how the same thing can hurt different people in different ways. Each of these people carries with them proof of a fundamental societal rot (though each views that proof in their own and occasionally oppositional way); that proof colors and infects their engagement with the world around them – usually to their detriment.

It’s also a reflection of how fearfulness regarding new ideas or somehow shifting the paradigm may take different forms, but is always lurking. There will always be those with unreasonable expectations on either side of the ideological divide; in a way, this book is about the fallout when those expectations are inevitably not met.

Goldsberry shows a remarkable restraint for a debut author in his slow, quiet distribution of pieces of the larger puzzle; the primary connections our changing character perspectives and leaps forward in time are obvious, but there are myriad secondary and tertiary connections as well that are fascinating to watch unfurl.

The depth and intricacy of the plotting is really something to see, connections on connections on connections that spider out from our titular objects in a manner that cleverly evokes the sorts of red-thread connection webs that we associate with conspiracy theory. And with so many of our narrators rendered unreliable by their own connections and biases, well … the truth might be out there, but good luck figuring it out.

“Nine Shiny Objects” is a thoughtful and thought-provoking novel, a portrait of American culture’s ongoing battle between idealism and cynicism. It’s also a story of connections (the ones we see and the ones we don’t) that offers a half-century-long look at what your beliefs can bring you – and what those beliefs might ultimately cost.

This felt more like short stories that utilize the same characters than one seamless story. The author's writing was excellent, though. I was confused as to why each chapter was told in a different character's point of view. I think it would have been better to stick to one character's point of view for consistency.

Not what I expected which was aliens but something so much better. Don't pass this up if you're thinking it's a story about people searching for little green men because it's so not. Told in nine chapters each chapter focuses on one character and their struggles they're facing in their lives. It interwines with the various characters into a story that is engaging. Definitely pick this up and discover a new author that I want to see more of. Happy reading!

Published by HarperCollins/Custom House on June 30, 2020

Knowing only that the book had something to do with lights in the sky, I thought Nine Shiny Objects might be a science fiction novel about first contact with aliens. It isn’t. The novel is more of a generational saga. The only aliens are Mexicans and Asians who immigrated to the United States to give their children the hope of a better life. The hope is realized for some of those children but not for the one who dies.

The story is told in nine chapters, each focusing on a different character, each beginning about five or ten years after the last chapter ends. The novel spans a period from 1947 to 1987. While the chapters are linked by certain locations and events, they read very much like self-contained short stories. Brian Castleberry’s goal is to show connections, cause-and-effect relationships, actions that set events in motion, spiraling into unexpected outcomes. While the characters and their lives are intriguing, I’m not sure the stories cohere in a way that creates a unified story.

The novel begins with Oliver Danville, who reads about a sighting of nine objects in the sky at Mount Rainier. Danville makes a pilgrimage, convinced that he will encounter a guiding intelligence that will give meaning to his aimless life. As he approaches his destination, he meets a farming family. Saul and Martha Penrod agree to join him on his quest, leaving behind Paul and Jack, their two adult sons. For years Paul will carry a grudge against Danville, who (in his view) lured their parents away, never to return. Jack later wonders whether that event instilled the anger that motivated the rest of Paul’s life, the hatred of hippies and commies and nonwhites, of anyone who did not fit within his narrow vision of what America should be.

Danville has a sister named Eileen, who in the next chapter falls in love with a waitress named Claudette, a character who reappears at the novel’s end. Eileen believes her brother, who now calls himself the Tzadi Sophit, had a vision, that he carries a message transmitted to humans by aliens. He is, in other words, the leader of a cult that might be a forerunner of Scientology.

The novel’s focal point, however, is a Long Island real estate development called Eden Gardens, a place that Eileen designed and that Seeker Industries built. Eden Gardens is on the outskirts of Ridge Landing, a community that is barely tolerant of its Jewish residents and that relies on a racial covenant to exclude people of color. Eden Gardens was imagined as a shared community and disparaged as a commune, a tract of houses that sat empty until 1957 when, in the dead of night, the Seekers’ leader filled it with his racially and ethnically mixed followers. Paul Penrod, an avowed racist, is there when Eden Gardens is being built, and plays a key role in the violence that shapes the rest of the novel.

From that foundation, the story lurches onward. A young black man named Stanley West witnessed the events in Eden Gardens. In a chapter that takes place a few years later, we learn how West's short stay in Ridge Landing affected the course of his life. A songwriter stars in a chapter that tangentially reintroduces Max Feldberg, who was a child of dubious parenting in Ridge Landing. That chapter culminates in ambiguous events involving another perceived cult that sends shock waves into the future. We learn about that event in a chapter that focuses on one of the Ridge Landing bigots who resents hearing about it from Morley Safer on 60 Minutes. By the end of the chapter, the bigoted character hints at the possibility of learning to overcome the senseless hate that has infected her community.

A popular radio talk show host with an affinity for conspiracy stories carries a chapter. Max’s daughter carries another. The last chapter brings back Paul and Jack. One of them is dead and the other doesn’t seem to realize, or care, that he’s interacting with a ghost.

At its best, Nine Shiny Objects tells a story of intolerance and its consequences. Without preaching, it touches on some of the low points in American history, from McCarthyism and entrenched racism to Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War. There is a bit of hope in the story, if only because the reader understands that prejudice endured by gay and black and Mexican characters will inspire civil rights struggles that will slowly erode (but not defeat) bigotry. Sadly, we know from the nightly news that the struggle must continue through future generations if the American ideal of equality and progress is ever to be realized.

At its worst, the novel is a surprisingly vague in critical moments. Max, for example, seems to have been leading a watered-down version of a Manson-like cult, but I would have enjoyed hearing Morley Safer's report given the absence of detail that we get from Castleberry. The same is true of Danville’s cult, about which we learn too little. These omissions seem odd, given Castleberry’s talent for delivering fully formed characters and imagining in depth the communities in which his characters reside.

I regarded the last chapter’s reliance on a ghost as having gone one contrivance too far. I’m not sure that all parts of the story contribute to a cohesive whole; at times, the novel seems a bit wobbly. As is sometimes true of first novels, Castleberry’s ambition may have exceeded his ability to tell a manageable story. The novel's drama tends to get lost in the wealth of background detail. But I love the complexity of the characters, the fluidity of Castleberry’s prose, the ways in which the chapters vary from each other, and the core message that envisioning a perfect community is much easier than building one.

RECOMMENDED

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I tried to get into it, and liked the first few pages, but once I kept reading, it couldn't keep my interest, and I no longer cared about anything that was happening.

2/5 stars only because it wasn't so bad to the point it was offensive, just not interesting at all.

Nine Shiny Objects is the debut book from Brian Castleberry - and my god - never let this man stop writing.

This story is breath-taking. Told over several decades and with various narrators, this is the story of a cult. I don't want to go into tooooooo much detail, I'd rather someone read this on their own and go on their own journey. It's excellent storytelling and a powerful story.

This book tells the story of The Seekers, a group whose aim is to create a utopian society that does not discriminate based on race or gender. Each chapter reads a little bit like a short story, with the threads of each characters journey intertwined with that of The Seekers. We learn, through each individual's chapter, how The Seekers and their ideals are put down with violence. This book raises extremely important issues regarding racism and prejudice in a fantastically interesting way. The writing is sublime. However, I have to say that I found the overarching story quite difficult to follow and it was not always obvious to me when previous characters emerged in others stories/chapters. In some ways I wish this were a book of short stories and then I would score it more highly. Thanks so much to the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this novel, I really did enjoy it and would recommend it to all the readers in my life (perhaps with a pen poised to take a few notes so that the story can be fully appreciated!).

I gave this book 4 stars . I was a little skeptical going in, especially because of the UFO's (but my father saw one I believe in the early 1950', soooo......), I had to try it when I got an ARC of this book. I thought the storylines of the different people interesting and especially how they were connected and it also had a cult feel to it, which I love. This book is most definitely not for everyone, not even me really. But I had to give it over 3 stars, just for the originality of it and the way Mr. Castleberry laid it out. Sometimes I had to go back and the re-read win-win sentences were a little long, but definitely an A for effort. Also, I had to look back at chapters to remember the different folks in it. Oh God I'm getting old, when I start calling people folks hahaa!


Special thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers. Also to Brian Castleberry for giving me a different story, a group of short stories within the book, (which is not a short story book by the way) and for a great debut novel. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!

Really a 3.5 star review. Another early reviewer on Goodreads called Nine Shiny Objects the great American novel, which I wish I hadn’t seen before reading the book because I think I judged it a bit harshly holding it up to that standard. To be sure, I enjoyed the novel, but it wasn’t really what I was expecting. I’m normally fully on board for sweeping tales told from multiple perspectives over wide swaths of time but this novel didn’t give quiet enough detail in each section - I often found myself confused about what was going on, who the characters were, and how they were related to one another. This wasn’t helped by some lazy writing throughout that left me re-reading sentences and patches trying to follow the thread. As things started to come together in the second half, I found it easier to follow the story and in turn to really sink into it.

The big triumph of the narrative is the clever way the story of The Seekers plays out at the periphery of the novel, leaving the reader to fill in the details as the picture comes into focus. Cult books have been popular for the last couple of years and are often pretty formulaic so it was very refreshing to see a new approach.

Overall, I think Brian Castleberry had a great idea but the execution was maybe not exactly right; it could have used a bit more fine-tuning. Would I recommend to a friend? Yes, definitely (as long as they are unto multiple-narrator format, which not everyone is). Would I call it the great American novel? No, I would not.

Big thanks to HarperCollins and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Nine Shiny Objects in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is pretty good overall. It doesn't have the polish of more experienced authors, but still contains a nice writing style. It's a little complicated at times and I stayed mostly engaged. The author has a good imagination and talent, and I hope he writes more.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

Every author (ok, I shouldn’t make generalizations, but at least most authors) dreams of writing The Great American Novel. And this guy went and did it, just like that, straight out of the gate. What an auspicious debut indeed. I selected this book quite randomly on Netgalley, I remember receiving the notification of approval and not quite knowing what the book was about or why I chose it, but once I read the first few pages…that was it, gone, transported to another time and place, completely immersed in the narrative, stolen away the way only the best books manage to do. I can sing this book’s praises for a while, but it’ll all amount to something like…awesome. Awe inspiringly terrific writing, awe inspiring cleverness of the narrative structure, awe inspiring characterizations. It’s just so good. I read tons, but it’s been a while since a literary novel has this effect on me. So this is all to tell you why the novel was great, now let’s talk about why it’s a great American one. It begins like this…in 1947 an American aviator reports seeing bright objects in the sky, a story that so beguiles a rambling tumbleweed of a Chicagoan that he sets off west following an impossible dream. Once there he establishes a community dedicated to the dream and promise of extraterrestrial life. Something of a free thinking free spirited commune or maybe something of a cult. Either way it doesn’t quite sit well with the local villagers with pitchforks and the situation ends up in tragedy. The results of this situation resonate throughout decades with a myriad of directly and tangentially involved characters all across the country. Each character is given a chapter, each chapter is set precisely five years apart. And thus we the readers get to experience the changing mentalities and shifting paradigms of the last century in the US. Through personal tragedies and private triumphs of micro and macro scale, the sociopolitical panorama of decades can be witnessed. Some of the stories are more directly connected, some read almost as standalones, but the universe remains the same and the final chapter ties it all up smartly and well, albeit disquietingly in a way. There is an underlying connection, like a current, that propels each story, each character in their individual quests, whether it’s a peace of mind or the eponymous shiny objects in the sky. Everyone’s got their own version of the famed American dream and everyone pursues it to the best of their abilities. Abilities often curtailed by personal or social or financial or romantic or otherwise limitations or, in fact, enhanced by the flip coin side of it. The stories are great, but the characters go beyond that, so much so they come to life, in all their flawed beauty, they may not be made likeable always, but the author does the tougher trick yet, he renders them understood. And so, you have some of the best character writing in recent literary fiction. And so, you have a magnificent book, a magnum opus, albeit one of a manageable page count, an epic in its own right and a terrific read all around. Recommended. Recommended. Definitely definitively recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

This is a beautifully written book. Such prose and effortless writing set the novel as a capturing read. A solid debut novel.

Nine Shiny Objects by author Brian Castleberry is an awesome thriller about the things that may be waiting out there, in the unknown. Will update review with details closer to release date!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.