Hari Kunzru

A pretty good horror novel about the fetishization and appropriation of Black music. It covers a lot of similar ground as John Hornor Jacobs' novella My Heart Struck Sorrow, one of my favorite horror reads, though subject of American racism is the subject here rather than one element of many. The resolution of the plot felt earned, and the writing itself was satisfying, though the middle third or so took a turn for the incoherent. Unlike in many horror narratives where the horror elements and the "real" thing the horror represents undermine each other, the supernatural and the natural worked cohesively together. Satisfying.… (more)

Engrossing novel, probably really 5 stars but I will have to think about it. The book is written across time with different characters (reminiscent of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and others, I think there is a name for this kind of fiction, but I can't think of it) all of whom have in common a single location in the desert (hence the book title, a fragment from Balzac's quote "In the desert, you see, there is everything and nothing....It is God without men.") The characters are all looking for something, the mystery of the world, something bigger than our lives, etc. The combination of the book being written as parts of a puzzle, when the characters are trying to assemble a puzzle, the characters being a large variety of searchers or pilgrims including several damaged war veterans, the use of American Indian mythology, and the maintenance of a persistent system of imagery throughout make this high quality heady stuff.… (more)