I read a recent book by the author and found it hilarious in a dark way. I have seen the author being discussed on the blogosphere and have been curious about his works. This particular book was available on my library shelf, and I decided to give it a shot.
One thing about the author is that the hype around his writing is true. Even if I did not enjoy this story as much as I would have liked, the narrative style and the vicious picturization of everyone involved was quite vivid.
This is a story revolving around sad discontented, and primarily selfish men. These attributes are associated with almost all of them in varying degrees. The changing narratives help provide a more realistic depiction of all the events. The ending was exciting and well done but not entirely unexpected.
It would be hard to provide a review without giving away the twists in the storyline. We begin with one writer, a lonely man with a skill who knows good writing when he sees it. He makes an unlikely alliance with another man, the nature and direction of which would be quite clear to a discernable reader. That said, it was hard to watch the way things turned out.
We jump into and out of a few other lives(almost all exclusively writers of varying calibre), forming small pictures of the whole until the very end. It is only then that everything that we supposed with every change in the narrator is shown in its entirety.
Some sections were quicker reads than others, but overall, the book is only a couple of sittings long. Unless one wants to dissect the implications of behaviours.
I will be picking up another book by the author next year.
Superfluous Reading 