Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68772 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-25
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
"Sebastian Beaumont's novel Thirteen is the best thing I have read this year and one of the two or three finest books I have come across since the new century kicked in." --Scott Pack

"Sebastian Beaumont pulls off two impressive feats in his first novel. He writes a colloquial, first-person narrative that is consistently engaging; and he creates a dreamlike, alternate world without stretching the reader's credulity or patience." --Nicholas Clee, The Guardian

"Stimulating and entertaining" --Francis King

Synopsis
Thirteen is not a number, it is a state of mind. "Thirteen" is the story of Stephen Bardot, a taxi driver working on the night shift in Brighton. He works such long shifts that he is often driving while exhausted, and it is then that he starts to experience major alterations to his perception of reality. People start to take lifts in his cab who know things they shouldn't, and who ultimately may not even be real, although the question of what constitutes reality forms one of the basic themes of the novel. He regularly gives lifts to Valerie - beautiful, haunting, but terminal - from 13 Wish Road to her 'positive thinking classes' at the Cornerstone Community Centre on Palmeira Square. When he is no longer asked to collect her, he fears that she is dead, and queries this with Sal, one of the night operators. Her response turns Stephen's world upside down. 'But Stephen,' she tells him, 'there is no such address. Wish Road doesn't have a number thirteen.' She's right. Wish Road's odd numbers are 7, 9, 11, 11a, 15, 17...And number 11a looks totally different from the house he thinks of as number Thirteen. So where has he been collecting Valerie from all this time?

A house that doesn't exist? As time passes, the world gets weirder. People appear (and disappear) who know far too much about Stephen and his past, and who lure him further and further into the twilight world of Thirteen. But if he asks any questions, he gets hurt. Ultimately, he decides, for the sake of both his safety and his sanity, he must walk away. But "Thirteen" has no intention of letting him go...

Customer Reviews

Intriguing and deft
A couple of reviewers have commented that the conclusion of this book is ambiguous - something I had worried about while reading it. Yes, it was a good read, but I did wonder if it was going nowhere. The fact is, Thirteen isn't ambiguous - and it does end up going somewhere. If it's a neatly tied up, 'rational' explanation you're after at the end of the book, you won't get that (arguably, if you had, that would have spoiled the mystery of 'thirteen'). What you do get is a surreal mystery that's never pretentious, never so mysterious that it loses you and never so far removed from reality that it becomes totally unbelievable. It's an excellent first novel with hints of Graham Joyce or Jonathan Carroll, and I'll be watching this author with interest in the future. Admittedly Thirteen clearly draws on Baumont's own experiences as a cab driver with, it would seem, real life anecdotes in there. It will be very interesting to see, in Beaumont's next novel, whether he's able to create an entirely fictional world that doesn't necessarily rely on his own personal experiences. I should imagine he will be able to. Clearly he has a great imagination and a fantastic way with words. I'm definitely looking forward to his next book.

13 - Unlucky for Beaumont
Thirteen revolves around the mental state of Stephen Bardot, a nighttime taxi driver. Through a combination of exhaustion and depression he finds himself involved in a world where reality and fantasy are inter-twined and indistinguishable. At first attracted to this world, he quickly becomes fearful and looks for ways to escape.

It came as a surprise to find that thirteen was rated with 5 stars because really, its not that good. There is a tendency to believe that because something is unexplained it is therefore deep and meaningful. In truth if a book gives you no insight into the subject matter it is a waste of time, and thirteen is a classic example.

The plot only really picks up in the last 50 pages, where it finally becomes intriguing. The first 200 pages repeat the same thing in different ways, as Bardot alternates between mindsets with no progress to the plot.

One positive aspect is the series of anecdotes of various passengers in the cab which are interspersed throughout the book. These give a little light relief from the burden of the plot and save this from a 1 star review.

Ultimately thirteen commits the ultimate sin - it leaves an ambiguous and totally unsatisfying non-ending, and you finish with a feeling of 'what's the point?'. Some people obviously enjoy this but they are a very select few.

This novel really draws you in to its state of mind...
Stephen Bardot is depressed after the failure of his business, and agrees to become a night-time taxi driver for a year. He finds that becoming nocturnal leads to a strange state of mind due to complete exhaustion where nothing is quite what it seems.
When he discovers that a house, 13 Wish Road, where he's had a regular pick-up doesn't exist, he begins to become obsessed and tries to get back into the zone where it was real. The Nurse tells him, 'Thirteen is not a number, it's a state of mind'. This leads to many strange experiences including meeting the girls of his dreams, but then he starts to ask questions about Thirteen, and just when as he's starting to come out of his depression, the events in the zone get very bad indeed ...
Based on real experience of driving taxis and drawing from the author's work as a psychotherapist, this is a many layered novel. Unlike many other novels which include experiences in altered states, this one is so skilfully written, you really believe in the dreamworld - it starts off so ordinarily as if it were part of normal life, that by the time you find out about it, you've been engaged with it for some time; when things get weirder you're then drawn with it. Finally, you are left to make up your mind over what ultimately happens to Stephen, but the lack of a finite ending doesn't jar, just keeps you thinking about what a good book it was.