Book review: John Wray -- Lowboy
Oct. 2nd, 2010 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesBook 65
I received an uncorrected proof copy of this through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme, having been sufficiently intrigued by the description to request it even though it's outside my usual reading range.
Description: In the tunnels beneath New York a young man is missing. With each passing minute he heads deeper underground, further from the world of light and reason and closer to the moment of his great surrender. Above ground Ali Lateef of the NYPD is assigned the case. The boy's mother Violet is reluctant to help and Emily, Lowboy's girlfriend and only confidante, appears to have vanished too Can Lateef find Lowboy before it's too late?
As it turns out, I think on the basis of the first few chapters that it's probably a superb piece of writing, but I'm finding it sufficiently disturbing to read that I don't really want to keep reading it. Lowboy is a 16-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, off his meds and on the run in the subway system of New York. The book opens in his viewpoint, and he's clearly already losing connection with reality, although you don't get the details until the next chapter, in Lateef's point of view. Wray's prose is stunning, in a blend of psychological thriller and litfic that provides a dizzying look inside Lowboy's damaged mind, contrasting it with the world as it appears from consensus reality. Too dizzying for me, and I'm abandoning ship in large part because Wray is so good at what he's doing here.
In spite of which, I'd still say that this book is one more reason for me to keep requesting Canongate's offerings to the Early Reviewers. I'm glad I tried this one, even if in the end it wasn't for me.
LibraryThing entry
[Normally I'd pass this on via the "who wants it next?" thread on Early Reviewers, but I've had it such a long time there may be no point. If anyone wants dibs on it, yell.]
I received an uncorrected proof copy of this through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme, having been sufficiently intrigued by the description to request it even though it's outside my usual reading range.
Description: In the tunnels beneath New York a young man is missing. With each passing minute he heads deeper underground, further from the world of light and reason and closer to the moment of his great surrender. Above ground Ali Lateef of the NYPD is assigned the case. The boy's mother Violet is reluctant to help and Emily, Lowboy's girlfriend and only confidante, appears to have vanished too Can Lateef find Lowboy before it's too late?
As it turns out, I think on the basis of the first few chapters that it's probably a superb piece of writing, but I'm finding it sufficiently disturbing to read that I don't really want to keep reading it. Lowboy is a 16-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, off his meds and on the run in the subway system of New York. The book opens in his viewpoint, and he's clearly already losing connection with reality, although you don't get the details until the next chapter, in Lateef's point of view. Wray's prose is stunning, in a blend of psychological thriller and litfic that provides a dizzying look inside Lowboy's damaged mind, contrasting it with the world as it appears from consensus reality. Too dizzying for me, and I'm abandoning ship in large part because Wray is so good at what he's doing here.
In spite of which, I'd still say that this book is one more reason for me to keep requesting Canongate's offerings to the Early Reviewers. I'm glad I tried this one, even if in the end it wasn't for me.
LibraryThing entry
[Normally I'd pass this on via the "who wants it next?" thread on Early Reviewers, but I've had it such a long time there may be no point. If anyone wants dibs on it, yell.]