Sometimes cross-between reviews seems moronic, like "This Album is a cross between Edith Piaf and Megadeath." The point of the comparison is to show you that a) the author is well-listened enough to pull from widely disparate sources and b) the author is a person of such fine sensibilities, he can discern the gradations of form are involved in a marriage of opposites. He can listen to such music and not hear simple noise, but the divine synthesis of a French Chanteuse and a California Death Metal band.Having said that, this novel is a cross between Chuck Palahniuk and Douglas Coupland. Like Coupland, This Book Will Save Your Life stars a earnest Man Of His Times, attempting to muddle through the spiritual dearth of modernity. Like Palahniuk, Homes strains credibility with her plot, throwing Richard Novak into one perilous, heroic situation after the other. Palahniuk's bombastic style is here, along with his seemingly amoral characters.
Richard Novak has been living his life on autopilot for many years, making money, pushing people away. He has been living like a shark, mindlessly pushing forward with no thought for the larger world. After a view of his own mortality and the appearance of a sinkhole near his home, Richard is forced to come into contact with the larger world. This Book Will Save Your Life is a novel about one man's realization of his own mortality and his search for redemption. He collects people: a woman crying in a produce section, a donut shop owner, a disheveled writer who is hiding from fame. The characters are, at times, poorly drawn but are true to their sketching. The dialogue is good enough; it is functional and doesn't intrude upon the story.
Like Palahniuk, Homes delights in trying to shock her audience. An argument between Richard and his drunken son left me bewildered, wondering if Homes was being brutally honest about the darker corners of the human heart or if she was trying to remind us that she can still mortify.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed Choke by Chuck Palahniuk or anyone who enjoys a story about someone trying to radically change their life. It was an pleasant read; I do not regret the purchase.
1 comments:
i like a.m. holmes, i do wish that she would put more emotions in it. writing seems so easy for her, almost too formulaic. i liked her essays on LA and her short story book with the penguin on it.
i found her through looking at what other people purchased after purchasing dave egger's A.B.W.O.S.G. [which you should jump on if you haven't yet!] via amazon.
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