The Lost Boys Symphony by Mark Andrew Ferguson
My rating: 4/5 cats
All he had was his memory of remembering. And memory could betray him.
this is a really fun little book. it’s also the kind of book that is hard to review without ruining. not that there’s a big twist or anything, but it’s a very complicated, intricate plot, and unless you’re addressing someone who has read it themselves, you kind of sound like a lunatic when discussing plot-points because you have to do too much backstory explanation for anything you say to make sense.
if you are a fan of jonathan carroll, stop reading this review right now and just automatically add this book to your to-read list. this theme is one that j.c. has approached from a number of different angles in his stories and novels. in fact, this book is basically just a longer version of carroll’s story alone alarm.
not that this is a rip-off, or derivative, but it felt familiar to me in a very favorable way. it’s about time travel and being (literally) held hostage by future and past selves and trying to “fix” the things that have gone wrong in life and all the different kinds of love and sacrifice and distance and … sound. and squalor. it’s a little sci-fi, a little rom-com, a little funny, a little sad.
i especially like the parts that highlight all the little excuses made to justify one’s moral slips in life, like when gabe is trying to/trying not to hook up with henry’s val:
Gabe knew at that moment that they would not be resisting forever. They wouldn’t be resisting at all. He told himself it was for the best. The longer they went without touching each other, the better it would feel when they finally did, and when Gabe really thought about it that meant that the ethical concerns underpinning their mutual resistance were more or less moot. Better to do it sooner rather than later. They’d enjoy it less. Which in turn would make it more acceptable.
there’s quite a bit of stoner-logic in this book. and it’s funny.
the time travel bits get a little misty, but that’s probably just my own inability to deal with time travel in fiction. and i have one really spoilery question, View Spoiler »
i can’t really say much more without digging myself into that hole of “so then this happens, but you have to know this first which doesn’t make sense until you remember this” and it will just get all murky.
time travel. it can be confusing.
