*Starred Review* In Untouchable (2011), O’Connor focused on a family tragedy—the death of a wife and mother—that shattered the lives of surviving family members. Half World also examines a tragedy, the CIA’s monstrous MKUltra program that sought to develop “mind control” techniques. Henry March, who is assigned to the program, is more devoted family man and accountant than dashing secret agent, and he’s sent to San Francisco in 1955 to set up a kind of brothel. Prostitutes he hires slip hallucinogenic drugs and other psychoactive compounds into johns’ drinks, and the men are held captive, interrogated, and sometimes tortured by Henry’s coworker, a brutal SFPD detective. Henry documents it all, silently unravels, then simply disappears, taking all his documentation with him. His family unravels, too, in part because the Agency thinks the family is complicit in Henry’s betrayal. Cut to 1972, and Dick, another troubled young agent dragooned into infiltrating radical groups, is also unraveling. He meets Henry’s daughter, who is working to reassemble her life, and he resolves to find Henry—the most honorable act of his less-than-honorable life. O’Connor’s spare prose amplifies the horror of his story. It also compels the reader to inhabit his characters’ lives. Half World is a stunningly grim and emotionally harrowing read and an astute and evocative portrayal of government paranoia during the Cold War and Vietnam War eras. --Thomas Gaughan
O'Connor writes with vivid descriptive detail and acute psychological insight, as well as flashes of searing, wry humor and occasional moments that simply break your heart. (
The Boston Globe)
O’Connor writes with grace and force. (
Publishers Weekly)
"Gripping...The perfect book for our present moment." (
The Daily Beast)
O’Connor’s spare prose amplifies the horror of his story. It also compels the reader to
inhabit his characters’ lives.
Half World is a stunningly grim and emotionally harrowing read and an astute and evocative portrayal of government paranoia during the Cold War and Vietnam War eras. (
Booklist (Starred Review))
"Fascinating…O'Connor is a gifted stylist, and he vividly captures the rabbit hole that swallows agents, their families, and their victims alike." (
Library Journal)
An invigorating historical thriller... Intimately gripping... O'Connor writes with fire. (
Kirkus Reviews)
"O'Connor shows the beauty, the complex blend of dirty truth and high ideals that reveal the human in all of us with an intimacy, elegiac gravitas and deep respect. A strong voice." (Chris Abani
author of The Virgin of Flames and GraceLand)
"
Half World is all in. A taut and suspenseful narrative. Well-wrought flawed characters. Prose that is pitch perfect. The truth is, Scott O’Connor is a beautiful, sage-like, and terrifying writer." (Andrew Krivak
National Book Award finalist and author of The Sojourn)
"Scott O'Connor's
Half World is like being granted clearance to classified files about a bizarre and fascinating moment in our nation's history--this is literary suspense of the highest order, and with every page I was intrigued a bit more, horrified a bit more, until I felt I, too, had been brainwashed and found it impossible to stop reading this beautifully written and utterly compelling novel. Now I must read it again. Now I must..." (Alan Heathcock
award-winning author of Volt)
Praise for Untouchable: "Scott O'Connor speaks softly and somehow manages to make something beautiful of unspeakable matters... a voice so insistently stirring, you want to lean in close to catch every word." (
The New York Times Book Review)
"O'Connor's prose is as beautifully terse as his plot... squeezing the reader's emotions so that when the myth of the "perfect" family begins to dissolve... it feels like the inevitable waking from a halcyon dream." (
Booklist)
"Astonishing... Introducing an amazing new talent to the world of fiction." (
Library Journal (starred review))
“Tender, haunting, exquisitely profound… an eloquent celebration of familial love made all the more poignant by tragedy.” (
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers)
"Once in a very long time, a book comes along that resonates and sings with heart. It's characters so real you want to touch them, hug them. . . .And when it is over you wish you could read it all for the first time, again. That is how good this book is." (
Crimespree magazine)
“Bring[s] the darkness in bold and daring ways…reminiscent of Nathanael West’s
Day of the Locust.” (Jim Ruland
San Diego City Beat)
“O’Connor maps the territory of dread and despair that makes the reader ache, that will not let the reader alone, even long after the last page of this beautifully written novel has been turned. With deft, precise, almost Hemingwayesque language, O’Connor has written a story that is deeply poignant.” (M.C. Wood
Buzzine)
"The world of Scott O'Connor's debut novel is tough, worn, and thoroughly lived in, and is as vivid and painfully honest as anything I've read in a very long time. Do not sleep on
Untouchable, this is the real thing." (Nathan Singer
author of A Prayer for Dawn and In the Light of You)
"One of those books you can hardly stand to stuff the bookmark in at the end of the night. Terrific." (Scott Phillips
bestselling author of The Adjustment and The Ice Harvest)
Praise for Among Wolves: "O'Connor is one to watch." (
Los Angeles Times Book Review)