A Ladder to the Sky is about a man with ambition and no conscience. Maurice Swift meets a very famous writer and uses the stories he tells to write a novel, ruining the writer's life. His character is developed mainly through the stories from other people whom he had manipulated. I found the story to be at once hard to read and impossible not to read. It may not be John Boyne's best novel, but it is certainly among the best.

The life of writers is part of the focus of the novel, and certainly Boyne is an expert, but it also is an exploration of how and why people keep giving more opportunities to those who are attractive and manipulative. I simply could not stop reading this novel because it was so compelling, this look into the story of someone who is completely without conscience, a narcissist, one will to to steal and kill with no more reason than it helped him.

It is one novel I will not soon forget.

This wasn't what I expected but again, the author is so good I love everything he writes. Not a touchy feely novel by any stretch, more a novel of the times. I didn't like any of the characters ( well, maybe Gore Vidal a bit) but overall it was a very good read.

Ambition: you might as well build a ladder to the sky.

The Prize, a literary award, is the glittering goal that one writer will do nearly anything to obtain. Bereft of inspiration? There are stories out there to appropriate.
This twisty drama is told in three parts, with varying narrators.

It's not a Heart's Invisible Furies blockbuster, but this story cleverly skewers the grasping literary life.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an early e-book copy.

In the movie industry, you can find an endless fascination with cinematography techniques and industry gossip. In the Publishing industry too, there's and fascination with the craft of writing and the would-be writers who submit story after story to publishers hoping to finally get a break. Boyne offers us a novel where he dissects the literary world and the cult of creativity. In particular, he slices through the tension between creative writing and literary success. Is it the craft and artistry that fascinates us or the incredible unique imaginative stories? What if instead of a writer and his typewriter in a lonely tower, we get a young man in a hurry who borrows ideas from here and there and ties them up in a pretty package? And gets shortlisted for the Prize? Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. How do you become a success if you've got no story of your own to tell?

Maurice is portrayed here as the ultimate Machiavellian manipulator. A user of people, if you will. An Adonis who uses his looks and charm to seduce both men and women in order to climb on top of their carcasses and reach the pinnacle of success. But, the story is replete with people using each other to get ahead. He only stands out in being so blatant about it. So remorseless, callous, empty.

Not exactly an action-packed bang bang shoot em up novel. But, a difficult to put down one nonetheless.

The mcguffin in this ingenious book is "The Award." Unnamed, but, really, does it need to be? Especially with all references to "long-listed", even more desirable, "short-listed," leading to the heights of WINNER. There have been several hilarious takes on the Award itself, most notably Amis's The Information and St. Aubyn's Lost for Words. Here is one of my favorite authors delving into the lengths one will go or rather depths one will plummet in quest of that crystal artifact and monetary award, both of which are completely overshadowed by Bragging Rights and Prestige. Maurice Swift is the unscrupulous antihero, a person so laced with malevolent charisma, who knows just who he's going to skewer next in his advancement to literary heights.

John Boyne has become one of my go-to authors for immersive novels that tell the larger story through the lens of an individual. His Heart's Invisible Furies, which was really about what it means to be gay in Ireland during the final years of the twentieth century, was on my top ten list two years ago, but here he tops even that one.

THIS BOOK WOWED ME!!!

Meet Maurice Swift whose single purpose in life is to become a famous novelist. Beware: Maurice is a story thief. He will steal your stories, and, in essence, your soul.

Maurice will do whatever it takes to get to the top but he was one major problem standing in his way--he lacks creativity. While he can write, his stories are boring….Ever the resourceful one, Maurice uses his physical beauty and charm to leach onto famous writers, not to learn from them but rather to steal from them. Maurice is a story thief, he uses people for their ideas and throws them away when he gets what he needs. He sucks people’s souls right out from under them, draining them to the point where they have nothing left to offer the literary world.

It all begins in Berlin in 1980, when renowned novelist Erich Ackermann first spots Maurice working as a waiter at the Savoy. Drawn to Maurice’s beauty, Erich lures him into becoming his assistant and believes that they have a true connection. But their connection slowly crumbles, as Maurice is only using Erich for a story...and what a story he steals! This seems to be Maurice’s first act of destruction. When he is done with Erich, he simply discards him and moves onto his next victim doing ANYTHING, and I mean anything, to get the stories that he needs. Once he has achieved his first conquest, he continues to take and take and take. One wonders if all of his stealing will ever catch up with him.

Told in three parts by three different narrators, along with some interludes woven in, A Ladder to the Sky details Maurice’s rise to the top. I too was enthralled with Maurice. As much as I despised him, I was intrigued by him and couldn’t wait to see what he was going to do to keep his status. Maurice’s character is brilliantly crafted-- it was as if I was pulled into the pages by Maurice, even before I got to experience his voice, which says a lot about Boyne’s writing ability.

Boyne’s writing is top-notch. Intricately plotted, filled with sharp wit and multi-dimensional complex characters, I was completely riveted while reading this. I found A Ladder to the Sky to be an absurdly interesting critique on the literary world. While I had a sense of how things would turn out in the end for Maurice, I could not predict the lengths that he would go to keep his fame.

I loved every moment of this book. It’s not a happy story, but it certainly is an alluring one that got under my skin. This is by far the best book I have read in 2018--I finished it some time ago and still cannot stop thinking about it. I highly highly recommend!


I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and Crown Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Irish author John Boyne has written a masterpiece. A Ladder to the Sky is brilliant!

Maurice Swift, is a so-so author who wants to succeed as a writer. It’s his lifetime ambition, and he doesn’t care how he gets there. Beautiful, charming, and ruthless, Maurice can’t come up with his own stories so he steals them. His first victim is Erich Ackermann who has received some literary fame. After using Erich’s personal story and destroying him, Maurice climbs the ladder to the more powerful. Maurice is a user. He is a sociopath and watch out if you get in his way!

Boyne’s novel is about obsession, betrayal, and relationships’ secrets. The dialogue is superb. The book’s character development is excellent.

Read this book. You will never forget it! One of the best I have read this year!

5 out of 5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley, Crown Publishing, and the wonderfully talented John Boyne for the ARC.

Publication date - November 13, 2018.
Posted to Goodreads- August 26, 2018.

A LADDER TO THE SKY
By John Boyne

SPOILER ALERT: Don't read further because it contains Spoiler's!

This was an amazing novel which shows how talented John Boyne is. He has created an unforgettable character named Maurice Swift. Maurice is a psychopath who has no conscious and uses and exploits everybody that he comes in contact with. Maurice is blessed with handsome physical appearance that makes him irresistible to both men and women who he exploits in every relationship he has. Maurice isn't attracted to either men or women so he never gets emotionally attached to any of his many relationships whom he will exploit all for his ambition to become a respected published author.

He starts as early as age 15 when he seduces a boy from Ireland trading sex for stories. Then Maurice moves on to his next mark a German man aged 66 who by a chance meeting Maurice becomes his assistant. Maurice knows he is handsome and the German Erich Ackermann becomes infatuated with Maurice. Maurice extracts Erich's secret past and publishes his first book called "Two German's. The publication of his first book makes Maurice a huge success in the literary world and Maurice has no regrets that he ruined Erich Ackerman's life as he promptly drops Erich. This will have major consequences later in Maurices's life in an explosive ending.

My favorite sections of the book are during Maurice's marriage to Edith. Edith is a professor who is a talented novelist. Maurice commits the most heinous crimes all in the name of saving his reputation. What he does to his son Daniel is pure evil and the only person to haunt Maurice. Maurice will do anything to steal other people's ideas. He creates a publication called Stori in which Maurice is editor and rejects the best stories and uses two author's ideas and revises them and combines them to create two more novels.

When a young PhD. student wants to write his thesis on Maurice and his body of work Maurice jumps at the opportunity. Who becomes predator and who becomes prey in this explosive section towards the end of the book. There is more to Theo than meets the eye.

This novel will be loved by both men and women. I will never forget Maurice Swift and look forward to reading John Boyne's previous work as this was my first time reading him. John Boyne is a talented author and this is an outstanding work that I will never forget. I highly recommend this novel to readers of all genres who love beautiful writing. It was an absolute honor to read and revieew

The author of The Heart's Invisible Furies, my pick for best book of 2017, is back with another incredible story, exploring the age old siren's song of success and greed. The life of Maurice Swift, a man who relentlessly seeks stories, is a tale of greed, obsession, desperation, and unmitigated ambition. Told through the eyes of the many characters who inhabit the decades of his life, we see Maurice at the beginning of adulthood, willing to do whatever it takes to obtain a publishable story. Next, we observe his mid-life years in the world of writers and publishers, and how his raw need for subsequent stories will drive him to ever darker behavior. Ultimately, we witness his elder years, where life has taken unexpected turns and another's ambition will seek to destroy Maurice. The question is, what came first...the evil or the ambition? This is a provocative novel that will provide a book club with endless conversation and an individual with haunting thoughts.

John Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies is one of my favorite books, so I was eagerly awaiting his new book. I was not disappointed - although very, very different from Heart's (and much more unsettling) the writing is wonderful, and the book manages to subtly ratchet up the tension throughout. I particularly loved one of the middle sections of the book, although it left me screaming with fury...

Where do YOU get YOUR ideas, Mr. Boyne??

Because they’re fantastic.

Expectations were high because The Heart’s Invisible Furies is pretty perfect. And I was not disappointed. I appreciate a good episodic narrative which I think is hard to pull off. Here, it’s well-executed and flawlessly punctuated by differing perspectives. I gasped, I cringed, and I laughed. Clever and darkly humorous. I loved it!

Thank you, NetGalley and Crown Publishing. It was a privilege and pleasure.

I tried not to have high expectations for this, I really did. I absolutely adored Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies, so naturally I was eagerly looking forward to whatever he would release next. But try as I might to moderate my expectations for this novel, A Ladder to the Sky still disappointed me. By and large, my biggest problem with this novel is that--and this is gonna sound harsh--its story felt like nothing special. The main character was a horrible person, sure, but not in a particularly interesting or compelling way. The plot was very linear and predictable; once you establish what kind of character Maurice is, nothing he does comes as a shock. The other POV characters of the story didn't interest me in the least; they seemed like a means to an end as far as Maurice's story was concerned. And then on top of all of that the ending was just underwhelming, a "that's it?" kind of ending.

This book is definitely not gonna deter me from reading Boyne's other books, but on its own it was just not a standout book for me.

Maurice Swift wants nothing more than to be a famous, prize winning author. Unfortunately, he never has ideas of his own. When he meets Erich Ackermann, an aging homosexual author with a secret past, he attaches himself to the man and draws out his story. Subsequently, he publishes a novel based on that story, destroying Ackermann's life, but gaining acclaim for himself. Thus begins his pursuit of fame, a road that leaves lives destroyed, and bodies, in its wake.
A dark and immensely readable tale, I almost had to stop reading this book, because I found Maurice so reprehensible. John Boyne has skillfully painted a portrait of a true psychopath, who has no problem at all using his ambiguous sexuality and ruthlessness to advance his own agenda. I kept waiting for his comeuppance. I won't reveal whether he receives it. I will say the book has a killer ending. Recommended!

In the same way Vampires hunger for blood, protagonist *Maurice Swift*, hungers for stories. John Boyne has created a literary Vampire! Swift will trade stories for organisms. He’s not wired sexually like most men. He has no desire for sex - with either men or women. Sex is just one of his power tools to achieve his needs: STORIES! Maurice is a writer who can’t for the life of him think of a ‘story’ to write about. Yet - Maurice is driven - obsessed - nothing else matters He studies every review of every new book published looking for clues as to “how do authors come up with stories?”

As an extremely handsome man - which means little to Swift per say - he will show off his tight abs as seduction for a story - for a juicy secret - for a story to steal and make his own. Be it an author Maurice admires, a wife who can write brilliantly, a son who needs his help, Maurice will sell out everyone and anyone that gets in his way of success.
Swift’s goals in life were clear from a young age: to become a famous writer, popular with mainstream readers, and highly respected with the literary critics. He also wanted to be a father. Swift will eventually sell out himself in time too.
With no storytelling talent of his own, Maurice Swift, is one of the most famous names in the literary world.

I still vote, “The Heart’s Invisible Furies”, best book of 2017....

I vote *Maurice Swift* as the most fascinating character of the year....2018!!! He’s toxic...dangerous....evil....and incredibly scrumptiously unavoidably alluring!!!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc of Ladder to the Sky, however this is no way influences my review.

Ladder to the Sky is about the life of an ambitious man, Maurice, who is mercenary in his focus to be a father and an author. He measures success largely with the goal of being awarded "The Prize" but also plans to be a commercial bestseller. The novel follows Maurice from his early 20s in 1988 to roughly the present day, with 5 sections of with 4 different POVs. My only complaint with this layout is that I wish that the section "Other People's Stories" was narrated by Theo rather than Maurice. Narration aside, this is a fascinating story about a life spent on singular focus for personal gain. I also loved how the more successful people that Maurice uses to achieve his goals are aware of their complicity but seem powerless against his charisma.
This is an accessible literary fiction book that raises a number of issues throughout - mostly surrounding naked ambition and ownership of art - and I would highly recommend it. I look forward to pub day and recommending it to everyone!

3.5 stars. A smoothly written and plotted tale of toxic ambition and fatal narcissism in the literary world. Though I found the plot quite predictable, I enjoyed the twists and turns of the story.

When you get ready to read a book by an author whose two previous books wound up at the top of your year-end best lists (and they're truly among some of the best books you've read, at least in the last decade), you get a little nervous whether lightning will strike thrice, or whether you're putting too much pressure on the book. (I am the one who has preached measured expectations when reading new books by favorite authors, because each new book deserves to be weighed on its own merit, not compared to others the author has written.)

All that being said, John Boyne, author of The Absolutist and The Heart's Invisible Furies, has done it again. He has created an unsympathetic, morally dubious character who is utterly unforgettable, and has slayed me in the process.

Maurice Swift is a handsome young writer with a tremendous amount of ambition, but he lacks the talent to back it up. No matter. When he meets noted novelist Erich Ackermann at a West Berlin hotel in 1988, he immediately recognizes that the older man is attracted to him. Ackermann is desperately lonely, and is energized by Maurice's companionship, so he invites the young man to travel with him around the world to participate in different literary events.

Maurice uses his sex appeal, and the tantalizing promise of giving Ackermann more of him, to encourage the writer to divulge a secret he has long kept hidden from the world, a secret with potentially damaging consequences if it is discovered, despite the fact that it happened when Ackermann was a teenager in the midst of World War II. Maurice realizes this story will be the perfect basis for his first novel, so once he gets what he needs from the man, he's ready to move on—and he doesn't seem to care what it does to Ackermann, or his career.

But once Maurice gets a taste of literary fame, he can't imagine life without it. After an encounter with famed writer Gore Vidal which makes him uncertain of how far his looks can help him succeed, he moves from literary circle to literary circle, from the U.S. to London and all over the world, in search of his next opportunity. And as he moves through his life, the stakes get higher and higher—until there's nothing he won't do for fame—but is a life alone worth the acclaim of success?

Although there are similarities to The Talented Mr. Ripley, A Ladder to the Sky is a novel all its own. Maurice is an utterly amoral character, and as much as you dislike him, you have to admire his cunning, his ambition, his single-minded pursuit of fame. We've seen this story before, but in Boyne's hands the suspense crackles, the longing of those Maurice strings along is tremendously affecting, and you can't wait to see whether he'll get his comeuppance.

Boyne throws some surprising twists into the plot, and takes the story to a different level. He's one of those storytellers that hooks you from the very start, and keeps you engrossed in the plot from start to finish. While his last two novels have remained in my mind because of the way they touched my heart, A Ladder to the Sky will stay in my mind because of Maurice Swift's character and his unbridled ambition.

NetGalley and Crown Publishing provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

John Boyne could write a 500 page play-by-play account of the sleeping habits of the maned three-toed sloth that inhabits the Atlantic Forest of Brazil using only words that start with the letter Q and I have no doubt that it would be anything less than a compelling example of literary excellence.

As is the norm in Boyne's stories, this book features a captivating protagonist, this time his name is Maurice Swift, a narcissist and quite possibly a psychopath, as such, he is a man willing to go to any lengths required to achieve his goal of becoming the most famous fiction writer in the world. You see, while Maurice is indeed an incredible writer, he lacks one important prerequisite for attaining the notoriety he so desperately seeks, he can't come up with an interesting plot to save his life. Being devoid of imagination, Maurice resorts to using the stories of others to achieve his goal, with no remorse for the lives he destroys along the way, and ultimately, including his own.

I dare say that nobody develops a character as intimately as Boyne. His protagonists are invariably so believable and relatable that you often feel like you are reading a biography rather than a novel. If you've never had the pleasure of reading a book by John Boyne, I cannot recommend enough that you remedy that situation immediately while you await the release of this gem. He is, arguably, the best writer of his (and mine) generation and certainly my favorite.


I was provided an ARC of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.