The Retreat

Dear David Bergen,

A couple things worked very well in your novel “The Retreat”. Your writing was very detailed and descriptive, and the metaphors used to represent certain situations in the novel were very interesting. On the other hand, I thought that the beginning of the novel was not very interesting and the plot seemed very stationary. I feel there should have been more a “bang” factor at the beginning, but sadly there was not and did not intrigue me as much as I expected. “Lewis had called the play dire. The actors were like spent swimmers who clung together and choked their art. Though these had been their father’s words, Lizzy echoed them now. Everett asked Lizzy what dire was and she said, ‘Desperately bad.’ They were in bed. Fish and William were sleeping. Lizzy was lying under a pool of light, writing in her notebook.” Pg. 87 This quote is good example of how you, the author uses metaphors that are interesting to me.

“Fresh croissants so buttery they melted in your hands before touching the mouth, and whole milk with thick cream, and muesli from the Swiss Alps, and then, after étouffing ourselves, we sat by the fire and smoked une pipe.” This piece of descriptive just makes your mouth water while reading, and having that feeling of waking up in the morning and having a wonderful breakfast. This practically describes your perfect type of breakfast to wake up to.

“Hart moved back to allow Raymond room, and as he did so, Raymond turned and swung his feet up and kicked out against his door. The door bucked outwards in a wild arc and caught Hart on the chest and waist and crotch. His face showed surprise as the air went out of him, and then he fell. Lizzy screamed.” Pg. 249 This part of the novel approaches near the end and is where the action starts to begin. After reading this part, I just intrigued me to keep on reading cause you could picture the scene so well.

Your novel seemed very sexual orientated why was that?

Why would you choose the main character, Raymond, to be a Native instead of another culture?

If you could re-write the ending of the novel how would you write it?

Sincerely, Michael Dawson