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The Resurrectionist

By Adam Goldstein, Special to the Rocky

Published May 1, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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* Fiction. By Jack O'Connell. Algonquin, $24.95.Grade: C+

Plot in a nutshell: In O'Connell's fifth novel, Sweeney has carved a dependable if predictable life, with his day job as a pharmacist and his fuller family life, which revolves around his wife, Kerry, and his beloved son, Danny. This stable life is destroyed when Danny falls into a deep coma after a mysterious accident.

After his marriage dissolves, Sweeney agrees to take a post as a druggist at the private Peck Clinic, a facility in the heart of a defunct industrial town. Its eponymous lead doctor, known only as Dr. Peck, and his daughter, Alice, have established an unorthodox program for treating coma patients, one that Sweeney hopes will pull his son from his sojourn in limbo.

As Sweeney fills his first days in the new post and thumbs through copies of his son's favorite comic, Limbo - a twisted series of stories relating the travails of a band of Bohemian circus freaks - he notices a connection between the fantastical fiction and his own waking world.

With the dubious assistance of a nomadic motorcycle gang known as the Abominations and their maven, Nadia, Sweeney seeks to reveal the true nature of Dr. Peck's revolutionary treatment and his own son's sickness.

Sample of prose: "(He) tried to watch Danny's favorite cartoon through a haze of snow. He'd been making an effort for the past six months to comprehend the program, but the number of characters and the complexity of their interweaving and always-changing relationships continued to elude him. The more confused he became, the harder he studied."

Pros: O'Connell alternates between an antiseptic hospital setting and a fantasy realm of circus freaks and feats of twisted magic. The dual story line is, at its best, an impressive show of narrative juggling and multitasking.

Cons: The ambitious parameters of O'Connell's plot fail to come together in the end, and the reader is left with more questions than answers. The author's attempts at maintaining two worlds are ultimately drowned by confusing plot threads and a clunky resolution.

Final word: A convoluted mix of elements fails to coalesce in the end.