The Gargoyle Hunters

By: John Freeman Gill

Narrated by: John Freeman Gill

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's Summary

Hilarious and poignant, The Gargoyle Hunters is a love letter to a vanishing city, and a deeply emotional story of fathers and sons. Intimately portraying New York's elbow-jostling relationship with time, the novel solves the mystery of a brazen and seemingly impossible architectural heist - the theft of an entire historic Manhattan building - that stunned the city and made the front page of the New York Times in 1974.

With both his family and his city fracturing, 13-year-old Griffin Watts is recruited into his estranged father's illicit and dangerous architectural salvage business. Small and nimble, Griffin is charged with stealing exuberantly expressive 19th-century architectural sculptures - gargoyles - right off the faces of unsung tenements and iconic skyscrapers all over town. As his father explains it, these gargoyles, carved and cast by immigrant artisans during the city's architectural glory days, are an endangered species in this era of sweeping urban renewal.

Desperate both to connect with his father and to raise cash to pay the mortgage on the brownstone where he lives with his mother and sister, Griffin is slow to recognize that his father's deepening obsession with preserving the architectural treasures of Beaux Arts New York is also a destructive force, imperiling Griffin's friendships, his relationship with his very first girlfriend, and even his life.

As his father grows increasingly possessive of both Griffin's mother and his scavenged touchstones of the lost city, Griffin must learn how to build himself into the person he wants to become and discover which parts of his life can be salvaged - and which parts must be let go. Maybe loss, he reflects, is the only thing no one can ever take away from you.

Tender, funny, and achingly sad, The Gargoyle Hunters introduces an extraordinary new novelist.

©2017 John Freeman Gill (P)2017 Random House Audio

Critic Reviews

"In the spirit of Jonathan Lethem and J. D. Salinger, John Freeman Gill strips the mask off New York City in this poignant, incisive, irreverent novel about fatherhood, art, obsession, creation, and destruction. This novel salvages so many things, not least our abiding relationship with the past. This is a wonderful, compelling debut." (Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic)

" The Gargoyle Hunters is wonderful, strong, funny, with yards and yards of beautiful writing. Its pages are full of reading pleasures.... Extraordinary." (Annie Proulx, Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author of The Shipping News and "Brokeback Mountain")

"John Freeman Gill's The Gargoyle Hunters is a brilliant evocation of many things: the world of a 13-year-old boy, with its mixture of thoughtless destructiveness and wrenching emotion; a son's relationship with a charismatic, architecture-loving, thieving father; the endless changes to timeless Manhattan during the crumbling, tumultuous 1970s. Funny, heartbreaking, elegiac, unforgettable - David Mitchell's Black Swan Green meets E. B. White's Here Is New York." (Gretchen Rubin, number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Project)

A 1970s Tale Of Woe And Destruction

It's so strange. I just finished the book Greyhound about a 12 year old coming of age on a cross country bus trip. In that book the main character sounded like a 12 year old--the perspective and tone seemed right to me for the age. In this book the character was 13 years old but sounded and behaved as if he was in his mid thirties at least. He was out roaming and vandalizing the city at all hours. He was sarcastic, destructive and profane. Maybe it was the deeply dysfunctional family that brought out the troubled adult in him, but this wasn't a coming of age story. In addition, the book was filled with an amazing collection of unlikable characters.

Plus, I didn't find the story funny in the least. To me it was just really sad. In addition, the mystery it was suggested that the story solved in the description of the book makes no sense. If you research the theft it seems that it was solved in 1974. For me far too much suspension of disbelief was required for this book. It all seemed fantastical and totally improbable and impossible.

Even worse, the author narrated the book and I wonder if this wasn't a mistake and didn't add to the adult feeling and tone of the story. I think a professional narrator might have made a huge difference in the dynamics and the way the characters sounded.

All in all this was a disappointment. I wish I hadn't pushed myself to finish this sad book about 1970s New York City and a fractured family falling apart. Two stars only because I stuck with it until the end. Not for me.

15 of 18 people found this review helpful

Love is fleeting, even when it's cast in stone.

Would you consider the audio edition of The Gargoyle Hunters to be better than the print version?

The audible edition of Mr. Gill's adventuresome tale frees you to multi-task and go about your day while keeping pace with his energetic thirteen year old hero. The author's passion for architecture and its elements comes through in his voice and expression as a boy encountering them for the first time. The boy's father salvages architectural elements and it is this dodgy activity that bonds them, but is in no way their salvation.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Gargoyle Hunters?

There are a number of Harold Lloyd moments. One when our hero, Griffin, in the middle of the night, at great height, is clinging to a spire in an attempt to harvest a gargoyle.

Have you listened to any of John Freeman Gill’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This was the first performance of his that I've listened to. I can only compare it to other authors. He manages to convey the energy and enthusiasm of his thirteen year old hero consistently, start to finish. His delivery and annunciation are so professional that it's surprising that up until now he worked exclusively in print.

Who was the most memorable character of The Gargoyle Hunters and why?

Griffin is the most memorable and his sister Quigley is also memorable. These adolescents whose needs are barely met by their self-absorbed parents, manage to find their niches and mentors to hone their talents. Their survival is in their own hands.

2 of 4 people found this review helpful

Immerse and reminisce

A terrific read for anyone who loves New York and understands the beauty of preservation; filed with vivid descriptions and meaningful prose. A great coming-of-age story narrated by the author himself.

0 of 2 people found this review helpful

New York City story

I was born in the Bronx and loved this tribute to the city. Maybe a bit draggy at times but overall a nice read.

0 of 2 people found this review helpful

Great coming of age story

Well written. Lovers of architecture, NYC life and the struggles of broken families will appreciate the writers keen observations.

0 of 2 people found this review helpful