SECURITY
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“THEMATICALLY, LIKE ANY GOOD SATIRE, IT PRESENTS A CAUTIONARY TALE AND DARES US TO FIND OURSELVES IN IT, AND BECAUSE AMIDON IS SUCH A FINE WRITER, WE DO. AS IN HUMAN CAPITAL, HE ONCE AGAIN DISPLAYS HIS UNERRING FACILITY FOR SNIFFING OUT THE SHAKY FOUNDATIONS OF OUR LIVES, SHOWING US WHAT WE WILL SELFISHLY RENOUNCE — TRUST, INTIMACY, INTEGRITY, REALITY — TO ACHIEVE WHAT WE BELIEVE IS AN IMPREGNABLE SECURITY.” STEWART O’NAN – WASHINGTON POST |
About Security
There isn't much crime in Stoneleigh, Massachusetts, a college town, a mountain getaway for the quietly rich. So when Edward Inman, owner of Stoneleigh Sentinel security, gets a late-night alarm from the home of one of his wealthiest clients, Doyle Cutler, he does a routine check and thinks nothing more of it—until a local student claims that she was sexually assaulted that night at Cutler’s house.
Edward soon finds himself drawn into the girl's story, and his investigation leads him to his old girlfriend, whose teenage son may know the truth about what happened that night. Security is a timely, wry, and riveting story of adults and children, secret lives and civic culture, suspicion and sexual hysteria.
Edward soon finds himself drawn into the girl's story, and his investigation leads him to his old girlfriend, whose teenage son may know the truth about what happened that night. Security is a timely, wry, and riveting story of adults and children, secret lives and civic culture, suspicion and sexual hysteria.
Praise for Security
“As the title suggests, this brilliant novel roots around in the contradictions of security: the need to feel safe and protected in one’s own home and town, against the desire to live in a genuine community. Thus Amidon’s Stoneleigh is a place of fidgeting paranoia where the rich live in gated homes and the innocent downtrodden are scrutinised by CCTV, Republican politicians, gossiping students and the local press. With its frustrated college lecturers and dysfunctional family units, Security will draw inevitable comparisons with Franzen, Chabon, DeLillo and other post-Updike American miserabilists.
Yet Amidon is a more modest stylist and a better storyteller, nearer in spirit to Raymond Carver. In a relatively short book, he brings emphatically to life, through their realistic actions and expertly rendered dialogue, some dozen characters – including Walt Steckl, one of the best drunks in fiction.
The tragedy that forms the novel’s page-turning climax is a largely blameless one: Amidon’s characters are victims of superbly crafted circumstances. Martin Hemming - The New Statesman
“Security is that peculiar breed of novel that reads quickly but requires close attention. The reader finds herself pulling back the reins, reminding herself to savor what goes down smoothly. The book is funny, too; wryly and intermittently in the way that life admits humor…More than anything, Security evokes the peculiar (and occasionally sinister) intimacy of a small town where citizens are quick to surmise the worst of their fellows and slow to exonerate them. Good fences may make good neighbors, but bad neighbors make better novels.” Molly Young – New York Observer
“first rate...a lean, meticulously observed story of a small college town. It races along from the first page…Amidon has a lightly satiric touch that recalls Tom Perrotta, and he deftly reminds us how class bias and gossip can roil the placid surface of a quiet, prosperous town. The novel is crowded with incident, but the pacing is brisk and the intersections of the characters artfully handled.” Taylor Antrim – The Daily Beast
"Security can denote the deterring of burglars, the stability of a marriage, what you risk in order to borrow money and, in contemporary political speech, that which 'balances' liberty, justifying restrictions on ordinary freedoms. Stephen Amidon’s new novel, set in a small Massachusetts town, plays deftly on all these resonances. Meg Inman is running for mayor, and has managed to get an illiberal law passed that forbids anyone to 'occupy, sit, squat or lie in any public byway for more than ten minutes'. Walter Steckl, who was almost electrocuted in an accident and now manages the constant pain with alcohol and painkillers, has fallen foul of this legislation. Amidon specialises in creeping satire; setting off the humour is the brilliance with which he describes Steckl’s pain, and his struggles with addiction and the legal system. This portrayal of a man broken by circumstance is so powerful that the other characters might suffer by comparison, but Amidon’s reputation as a crafter of novels that burrow beneath banal suburban surfaces ought to be secure." Stephen Poole – The Guardian.
"Amidon non fa politica, ma mette a nudo, scarnificando, le ossessioni della classe media, bianca e nera, di certe cittadine del New England, anonime, tutte uguali, ventre di una società lontana dai salotti letterari e da chi crede che i problemi dell’esistenza siano altri, più lontani o metafisici...se c’è qualcuno che ti mette davanti allo specchio e ti dice «guardati, questo sei tu» è un ex critico cinematografico e giornalista culturale. È, appunto, Stephen Amidon." Vittorio Macioce - Il Giornale.
"Amidon’s plotting is crisp and assured and his depiction of disturbing secrets embedded just below the surface of placid suburban life has the feeling of truth. It’s a territory he knows well and in Security he’s successfully made it his own." Harvey Freedenberg - BookPage
Yet Amidon is a more modest stylist and a better storyteller, nearer in spirit to Raymond Carver. In a relatively short book, he brings emphatically to life, through their realistic actions and expertly rendered dialogue, some dozen characters – including Walt Steckl, one of the best drunks in fiction.
The tragedy that forms the novel’s page-turning climax is a largely blameless one: Amidon’s characters are victims of superbly crafted circumstances. Martin Hemming - The New Statesman
“Security is that peculiar breed of novel that reads quickly but requires close attention. The reader finds herself pulling back the reins, reminding herself to savor what goes down smoothly. The book is funny, too; wryly and intermittently in the way that life admits humor…More than anything, Security evokes the peculiar (and occasionally sinister) intimacy of a small town where citizens are quick to surmise the worst of their fellows and slow to exonerate them. Good fences may make good neighbors, but bad neighbors make better novels.” Molly Young – New York Observer
“first rate...a lean, meticulously observed story of a small college town. It races along from the first page…Amidon has a lightly satiric touch that recalls Tom Perrotta, and he deftly reminds us how class bias and gossip can roil the placid surface of a quiet, prosperous town. The novel is crowded with incident, but the pacing is brisk and the intersections of the characters artfully handled.” Taylor Antrim – The Daily Beast
"Security can denote the deterring of burglars, the stability of a marriage, what you risk in order to borrow money and, in contemporary political speech, that which 'balances' liberty, justifying restrictions on ordinary freedoms. Stephen Amidon’s new novel, set in a small Massachusetts town, plays deftly on all these resonances. Meg Inman is running for mayor, and has managed to get an illiberal law passed that forbids anyone to 'occupy, sit, squat or lie in any public byway for more than ten minutes'. Walter Steckl, who was almost electrocuted in an accident and now manages the constant pain with alcohol and painkillers, has fallen foul of this legislation. Amidon specialises in creeping satire; setting off the humour is the brilliance with which he describes Steckl’s pain, and his struggles with addiction and the legal system. This portrayal of a man broken by circumstance is so powerful that the other characters might suffer by comparison, but Amidon’s reputation as a crafter of novels that burrow beneath banal suburban surfaces ought to be secure." Stephen Poole – The Guardian.
"Amidon non fa politica, ma mette a nudo, scarnificando, le ossessioni della classe media, bianca e nera, di certe cittadine del New England, anonime, tutte uguali, ventre di una società lontana dai salotti letterari e da chi crede che i problemi dell’esistenza siano altri, più lontani o metafisici...se c’è qualcuno che ti mette davanti allo specchio e ti dice «guardati, questo sei tu» è un ex critico cinematografico e giornalista culturale. È, appunto, Stephen Amidon." Vittorio Macioce - Il Giornale.
"Amidon’s plotting is crisp and assured and his depiction of disturbing secrets embedded just below the surface of placid suburban life has the feeling of truth. It’s a territory he knows well and in Security he’s successfully made it his own." Harvey Freedenberg - BookPage