American Rust by Philipp Meyer
My rating: 4/5 cats
awwww, poor book! i am only feeling three stars cats here, but i am giving it four because the other reviews are so unfair. (not the one that says there has been no good fiction published this century—that one is so much laughable curmudgeonly elitist bullshit i can’t even acknowledge it) but it’s not a bad book. as far as the “confusing narration,” “who is speeeeaking??” hint: the chapter names are the names of the narrators. so—no great mystery there. the run-ons and lack of punctuation?? it’s mostly internal thoughts of characters with varying degrees of intellect/insight, so there’s bound to be some diversion from textbook grammar. frankly, i didn’t even notice, and usually that sort of thing stands right out to me. guess i was enjoying the plot too much to nitpick the punctuation. it’s good; it is shades of russell banks and richard russo and all the “frustration about being trapped in a dying town” that makes steinbeck so charmingly bleak and the “solo man on a hopeless quest” theme that brightens cormac mccarthy’s pages. and if tom “i don’t read books written by people under forty” fuller liked it, who the hell can say anything else?? tom fuller, kids—smartest man i know.
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