Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14000 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Mail on Sunday
‘A wonderfully unsettling psychological thriller … An oddly beautiful journey into the darkest corners of the human soul’

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‘Shocking, moving and beautifully written, it is an extraordinary novel about family mystery and medical marvels’

Independent on Sunday
‘Emotionally compelling, morally fascinating … breathtaking. It has more suspense than many thrillers’

Customer Reviews

Arresting idea but ultimately unsatisfying.
Although the general premise is good, there seems to be something missing. You don't find yourself caring about the characters, you just want to know what happened. It is the literary equivalent of eating weetabix at two in the morning. You don't really love it but you may as well eat it as you've nothing else in. I've started so I'll finish kind of thing. If that makes sense.Natalie Drax appears as an outline and not fully formed as a character so it seems mad to think Dannochet would be madly in love with her. This love also spawned one of the worst lines in the book. Dannochet is describing Natalie Draxs'eyes and he says something like 'They were the colour of the Provence hillside after rain in winter.' Purlese. I had to stop and recover after that one.
Ah well. On the plus side when Jenson writes as Louis, it's really very good and feels authentic.

Interesting but unimpressive
The Ninth Life of Louis Drax is a novel that evolves around a very interesting story. Louis Drax is 9 years old and for his birthday his parents take him to a picnic in the Auvergne. Louis, who has always been remarkably accident prone, falls into a ravine. He ends up in a hospital in the Provence in a deep coma, under the care of specialist Dr. Pascal Dannachet. As Dr. Dannachet becomes more and more involved in Louis' story, events lead up to reveal exactly what happened in the Auvergne and the truth about Louis' life.

Despite the very promising subject I found the novel to be a bit of a disappointment. One of the reasons is the lack of depth and believability of the characters. It is not made sufficiently clear why they do what they do and who they really are. The only person we really get to know is Louis, whose voice is quite believable, although he sometimes contradicts himself. Dr. Dannachet, however, comes across as being so naïve and gullible that one may wonder how he got his doctor's degree.
The other reason for disappointment is the jumbled and confusing writing style. Jensen mixes thought, event and emotion in a very disorderly manner, and very often repeats and at other times contradicts herself.
Nevertheless I was enthralled by the story, and wanted to keep reading it till the end. The plot is certainly worth your while, but from a literary point of view this was somewhat of a disappointment.

Complex psychological drama
This is a mystery story at heart, but one which is complicated by being set in the world of clinical psychology and analysis where what you think is real may actually be another symptom of possible psychosis. Unpicking the tangled threads of this story can be hard going, but it certainly keeps you guessing.

Louis is a little boy who suffers from a terrible brain injury, leaving him in a coma. When he recovers it is the job of those who care for him to piece together exactly what happened on that fateful day. It is well thought out, clearly researched and tightly plotted, albeit in a rather confusing way. The time lines jump around, as do the 'what's real' issues and if you don't keep track it is easy to get lost in this book.

I wouldn't say this is a comfortable read, the characters are oddly unsympathetic and I think have been sacrificed to some extent for the sake of a very demanding story line. At the same time it does pull you in and keep you on the edge of your seat.