The Temple of Gold by William Goldman

I got to this book by pure randomness, using a random book finder. I had no clue it existed before the tool suggested it. My wish was to read something different and with more life in it. The last 2 books I finished were quite grim and had nearly identical serial killers. So here we are – by an act of luck, I got into this strange little world that was so wow.

The Temple of Gold has many beginnings, a little forgiveness, and fewer ends. It feels like a condensed version of the drama of an entire high school from the 1950s plus a spice of hopes, dreams, and aspirations. It is a mess of the kind that could happen and probably happens here and there, often in young people’s imagination or old people’s fears. The main character is not kind or even likable but despite that, the story is so well written and human that I went from start to finish in one try and enjoyed it.

Wikipedia says that when Goldman was in his early 20s, he got rejected by publishers for other work with “We can’t possibly publish this shit.” It’s quite an improvement to go from low-quality stories to world-class writing in less than 5 years. Overall, very happy with the randomizer, it could’ve suggested his prior work 😁

My next book will also not feature a serial killer.