Christopher Boucher

Christopher Boucher’s latest, Big Giant Floating Head, could be mistaken for a self-loathing pity party in 17 chapters disguised as an experimental fiction novel. To do so, however, would be to miss out on some moments of piercing reflection that illuminate different stages of grief and loss after a rejection of love. Each of the chapters are worthy of standing as an individual vignette, but they are linked together thematically by the struggling eponymous main character. The “Chris Boucher” in the book experiences a loss of self and explores questions about his worth in a variety of imagined scenes. His recent divorce serves as the undercurrent for his character to inhabit worlds that include: a university that offers classes on how to be “Chris;” a hotel inhabited by his past selves and everyone he has ever met; a “fail-off” competition; and a job that places him physically inside the pages of his own book as a scene-construction worker. Some of Boucher’s other conceits are less successful and the metaphors can become a bit heavy-handed, but each entry is cleverly depicted and contain enough humor to keep the pathos at bay. In an entertaining way, Boucher’s Big Giant Floating Head provides a kaleidoscopic perspective on coping with a difficult situation.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Melville House for an ARC of this book in exchange for an objective review.… (more)

I bought this book as the blurb sounded quirky and different from anything I had ever encountered before. I was intrigued to see what the book was like. It wasn’t long before I discovered what the book was like and it wasn’t a positive impression that it left on me.

It opened with a birthday party scene where the main character was in the park with his ‘son’ who was the Volkswagon celebrating his birthday. The main character though appeared to be human but the author had given the car human traits and personalities. Then a little bit later we have a story about the main character meeting his Dad in a café for lunch or the like. His Dad apparently arrived in an invisible car (my head was spinning by this stage), and then the author talks about how his Dad was attacked by a Heart Attack Tree. By this stage I couldn’t cope with the story any longer. I was way more confused than I felt comfortable with. Needless to say I couldn’t keep reading the book so I had to stop reading it.

The biggest problem with this book was not that it used metaphor (and I suspect a lot of other English tools to make the story unique) but that it appeared to overuse metaphor. There was so much metaphor that it confused the whole story, for me at least. Unfortunately, I won’t be reading any more of this author’s books anytime soon by choice. Very disappointing venture into finding another new author to add to my repertoire.… (more)