Man Gone Down

I'm had some difficultly trying to review this. In the early going, over about 100 pages or so, this book was an out and out wow. The narrators is broke, jobless, homeless but living in a wealthy friends house in Brooklyn, and alone having just watched his kids and wife leave town to stay with his mother-in-law. He begins to break down; as he does so he goes into trances pondering the consequences of being black, of a troubled childhood, of his white wife and mixed children, all of which are fascinating. But then the narrator starts to talk about his day and doesn't stop; it keeps on going and going. I had to change how I read it, actually I had to figure out how to read it. I had the impression the book became something like a musical show more composition with long wandering passages that come to peaks and pauses when there is a dramatic twist or the scene changes. I'm not sure if that's really accurate, but that's how I read it, trying to find a flow, and following the narrator as he hovers on the brink of collapse. It's interesting and it works in its own way. On the inspiration of the first 100 pages or so, I was able to carry on through and enjoy it.

2009
http://www.librarything.com/topic/68641#1376494 show less

The unnamed narrator of this stream-of-consciousness novel must raise thousands of dollars in a short time to pay his children’s private school tuition and put money down on a new apartment. His excruciatingly WASP-y wife is away with their kids for the summer, visiting her mother whom the narrator dislikes. He is a recovering alcoholic, an Ivy graduate, and a writer who, instead of writing, is working a series of under-the-table construction jobs.

Ye gods I hated this. The narrative was full of flashes of beautiful writing in a murky stream of consciousness, and that style is just not my cuppa. The narrator’s voice also seemed annoyingly whiny considering this guy was able to go to college "in Boston." Some in my book club accused show more the narrator of over-emphasizing the role race played in his problems. I won’t say that, because it’s hard to over-emphasize the role that race and class play in the kind of “luck” you have in life. In some ways I have faced the same issues as our narrator. But if I wrote the book it would not be stream of freaking consciousness. show less

There are moments of greatness here, but too many tangents to hold it together. I started disliking the narrator but grew to like and care about him. The portrayal of Claire, his wife, is utterly one-dimensional. We never know why she is so blindly devoted. He certainly doesn't seem to warrant that, either in actions or spoken words. I wish there was less politics and more on the characters, as they are all fascinating, Marco, Claire, Edith, Gavin, Shake and the narrator's parents. This author has amazing potential. The racial observations are good, real, but sometimes a little over the top and repetitive, with all of the "brown man" language. I too am in an interracial relationship and find that some of his observations were spot-on, show more some just confusing, self absorbed and over generalizations of white people. Despite some criticism, I do recommend this one. It's not a fast read and at times you'll wonder when he'll "get back on track" but he always eventually does. show less

The narrator of "Man Gone Down" is floundering -- separated from his wife and three children, unable to earn the $140K his wife estimates they need to maintain their life in Manhattan, failing to find a professorship and skirting alcoholism. What troubles the narrator more is the sense that his mediocrity flies in the face of what he has been told all his life - that as an intelligent, healthy African-American he should be achieving greatness. This work delves into the tense, yet familiar world of the middle class -- fearful of losing health insurance, scrambling to afford private school for the children, surrounded by the successful, who move through life seemingly without effort.

Excellent. 9/10. A superb stylist. Such an eye for detail, his prose is poetry. One to re-read, because so dense with layers of meaning.

I'm surprised I finished this book because I spent the first half of it wondering why I was bothering reading it. I think mostly I don't really like to read books that are mainly just inner dialogue. Especially when the narrator is super annoying. Also, it is hard to differentiate between the present and past with the constant time jumping... maybe it would help if I would remember character names.

While this boo has been highly reviewed, I could not get into it, so did not finish.