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The Servants | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Marshall Smith
Publisher: Eos
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.98
You Save: $6.97 (47%)
New (35) Used (18) from $6.59
Avg. Customer Rating:  86 reviews
Sales Rank: 191032
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 006149416X
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780061494161
ASIN: 006149416X
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
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Product Description
For young Mark, the world has turned as bleak and gray as the Brighton winter. Separated from his real father and home in London, he's come to live with his mother and her new husband in an old house near the sea. He spends his days alone, trying to master the skateboard, while other boys his age are in school. He hates the unwanted stepfather who barged into Mark's life to rob him of joy. Worst of all, his once-vibrant mother has grown listless and weary, no longer interested in anything beyond her sitting room. But on a damp and chilly evening, an accident carries Mark into the basement flat of the old woman who lives at the bottom of his stepfather's house. She offers tea, cakes, and sympathy . . . and the key to a secret, bygone world. Mark becomes caught up in the frenetic bustle of the human machinery that once ran a home, and drawn ever deeper into a lost realm of spirits and memory. Here below the suffocating truths, beneath the pain and unhappiness, he finds an escape, and quite possibly a way to change everything. A richly evocative, poignantly beautiful modern-day ghost story, The Servants marks the triumphant return of Michael Marshall Smith—the first novel in a decade from the multiple award-winning author of Spares.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 81 more reviews...
 "Behind the Attic Wall" only with a boy and no attic November 20, 2008
It's not really that much like Behind the Attic Wall when it comes down to it. But as I read "The Servants" it had the same sort of "ambiance" as that book.
For reasons that I can't explain, I had difficulty sympathizing with the main character, Mark, but I did recognize him as a real person.
I think that a young reader who's recently gone through a move or something like it would really enjoy this book.
 I don't get it...... November 20, 2008
You know, I think there are some people out there who just don't do well with lyrical writing. Like me. I don't huge metaphors either, or books (especially fantasy) where something happens so out of the blue that you have to put the book down, stop, and make sure you weren't hallucinating.
Because "The Servant's" had all of the above qualities it wasn't a book I enjoyed very much. If more of what was going on was explained instead of just being this obscure, "mystical happenings are a-foot" story I'm sure I would have liked it more. But as it stands, I don't like things I don't understand and I didn't understand this book.
Interesting, OK read November 14, 2008
First of all (and most seem to agree) the ending seems a little rushed when it finally gets there. Expect that up front. The main character is a bit of a pain (somewhat understandably) but that feeling wore off after a while. Overall, though, I did like it. I am a sucker for ghost stories and while this is not your traditionally scary ghost tale, it does a good job with that mystical, other-worldly feel. A quick and fairly enjoyable read.
 Perplexing November 11, 2008
I'm not sure what to do with "The Servants." It feels like a young adult novel, but it's not being marketed as one. (Other than the swear words, which aren't really necessary to the plot or the characters, it would be totally appropriate for the Harry Potter set.) Michael Marshall Smith does an excellent job of capturing the self-absorption of youth without making his main character, 11-year-old Mark, at all unlikeable. That's quite a feat.
The ending is a little unbelievable, and I was never entirely clear on what was the deal with the house and its benign haunting, but I enjoyed the story and the characters. I will probably share this one with my nephew when he's a little older (he's 9 now).
Intriguing unusual novel - part ghost story, part human-interest November 5, 2008
The Servants is an interesting little book. While I got it because it was listed as a ghost story, it is kind of a mix between that and a tale about an intersting young English lad whose mother has remarried. Mark does not get along with his new step-father, and his mother has become quite ill. They move to Brighton, where he meets an elderly woman who lives in the downstairs flat. What Mark learns -- about the house the woman lives in, as well as about his perceptions concerning his stepfather, David, and his mother, Yvonne, is the crux of the story. He is intrigued by the ghostly servants who seem to live in the back room of the old lady's flat. It is thought provoking. I became as interested in Mark's story as well as the ghost story aspect of the book. I won't say more, because I don't want to spoil the ending.
This book is well written, smooth and intriguing. The author, Michael Marshall Smith, has done a superb job of capturing the imagination of the reader, as well as depicting the boy's life and worries and fears about his mother.
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