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Previously I've read from Jonathan Lethem his debut novel Gun, with Occasional Music. The book charmed me with its mix of hardboiled detective story and weird future. This Shape We're In, a novella, isn't less strange. It's a story about some people, living in a "shape" - something large and four-legged. Mr. F is a garbage hider from the bowels, when a cocktail party turns bad. Apparently his son is living in the eye of the shape as a beggar. Of course Mrs. F sends our protagonist to get the boy back.

Mr. F, a curious character, goes after the boy with Balkan, a friend of his son who found him in the eye. They travel through the shape drinking a lot. Mr. F keeps the witty banter running non-stop, too. It's fun little adventure, with an excellent twist in the end. The story is strange, almost surreal, and Lethem doesn't spend any time at all explaining what's going on - everything is fed to reader straight-faced. The ending gives a satisfying explanation, though.

This was a fun little book, definitely worth reading for some strange entertainment.

(Review of This Shape We're In at Mikko reads) ( )

Philip K. Dick Would Be Proud of This Little Book

As I read the 55 pages of This Shape We’re In, I kept thinking that I was reading a Philip K. Dick story; this was something I couldn’t shake all the way to the end and enhanced by the fact that this is the first thing I have read by Jonathan Lethem, and because of this I look forward to reading more.

It would be difficult to say much about the plot because almost any detail would spoil the reading of this book and the answer to the question that runs through this book: what is the Shape that the characters live in – a multi-generational spaceship? A fallout shelter? – and what will the Eye see – Interstellar space? A nuclear wasteland? That is the most I can give away without ruining the fun of reading this little novella.

And, again, this book would do Philip K. Dick proud! I don’t know if Lethem intended this or if his books are very Dickian as a whole.

Hats off once again to McSweeney’s Books for bringing this book to us. ( )