Week Two, Book Two.Fiction this time, and the first fiction I've read all the way through in a while now. Usually it's science, history or something else in between that. The thought of filling myself with other people's fictions when I have plenty of my own, put me off fiction in general for a while.
But for a Fictional comeback there's nothing better than something like this, a personal connection to a book. In this case a novel written by a friend of mine.
It's good, I really enjoyed reading it, despite the bleak path it treads inexorably towards resolution, evolution and eventual emancipation. I've always found Matt's style and prose engaging, even if the subject matter disturbs somewhat in places. Empty Mile is a very different beast to me than High Life was even if some of the elements share similarities. It's more like he's taken a faded yet thick sepia curtain and drawn it across the nasty exposed innards of his other works and suggested at the shape of things rather than turning on the spotlight per se. Though every now and then the red hot poker cauterises a small clean hole through that and gives you that peephole glimpse of the darker nature.
And for all those reasons I really enjoyed reading this book. Unsettling but not confrontational. It's very noir, very twisted and complex, but also simple and ultimately satisfying in it's conclusion. Slow and deliberate in both pace and revelation have paid off for the ending to make it's mark.
I especially loved the title and how that works out to motivate the guilty, the innocent and the obsessed that live and die in Oakridge.
Next week I'm undecided, but it will be either:
a) Sway (The irresistible pull of irrational behaviour)
b) The Language of Things
c) Freakonomics (I've already read the sequel).
Or
d) The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie.
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