The House of Journalists: A Novel

The best way I can describe this book is that it is written far above my head and beyond my imagination. The description of the book sounded fascinating - but the experience of reading it was frustrating and not fulfilling. There were moments where I thought I was within reach of getting what the characters were alluding to - but their voices were so similar and the detail so very vague - that the story kept slipping from my grasp.

Some turns of phrase caught me - “…and yet it is not a cold day: it is neither cold nor warm, though it is colder than it is warm, and it is warmer than the seasonal expectation. The season is winter, the month is February, the hour is three.” But then I would lose the thread of the character, the show more action, the hundreds of things that were happening behind the scenes. Things the author may have thought were clear enough to be tantalizing - but were such light outlines of allusions that I could not make sense of them.

“For Agnes’s poems are the sort of writing that Julian and the Committee value above all else. The House of Journalists is about such writing. It exists for it and because of it. Without the naked pain, the uncensored horror, the howls of injustice and fanfares to the human spirit, this place would lost its hold on public imagination.”

This story lost its hold on my imagination early on. I wanted to like it, I wanted to know what was behind the curtain - but after 19 days of reading - the book proved too much for me. show less

This is not a book for everyone. It is almost le Carré-ian at times, in the best possible way. It moves at its own pace, often coolly and calmly and without much seeming “purpose” – but for those interested in politics, in oppression, in yet another angle of our increasingly globalized world… this is a golden debut. It reminded me of how much I loved my poli sci classes in college and how proud I am to maintain even the slightest interest in that part of our world. I look forward to whatever comes next from Mr. Finch – and I hope that this book garners some level of acclaim, if only to shed light on the very real and very thorny problems of helping those whose stories have been silenced.

Much more, I hope as considered as this show more book deserves, at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Ij show less