Steven Sherrill came to my attention when i picked up a copy of The Minotaur takes a Cigarette Break - just because I liked the title.The book proved every bit as good as the title and he was immediately added to my must buy pile.
This particular book took a while to find a publisher. According to Mr Sherrill's website, they found it too dark.
It starts with the single best opening I have ever read (in fact - opening chapter...)
One. Two. three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
This is how many times we stab her.
The rest of the book more than lived up to the promise of that opening chapter. these are the comments about the book I left on my facebook page at the time when I read it.
"Bleak now has a whole new meaning. this is one of the most, sod that, THE most emotionally draining book Ive experienced.
I say experienced not read because this book grabs hold of your brain and climbs inside. These characters and their different in/sanities feel so real. The swiftly changing narrative viewpoints disorient you and throw you at a wall of unrelenting... misery is an unfair word but I'm struggling to find another except bleakness.
But that's unfair as this is more than just bleak. The writing is so brilliant, you're swept through the story and long to know what's going to happen, no matter how shattering it might be.
However unlikely some of the character's actions might be, they fit perfectly with their personalities. Like Pat Highsmith at her best, you dread to think what might come next.
This is a must-read for anyone who likes great writing."
Time has not faded that opinion in the slightest.
The novel is split into distinct narratives. The three members of the Augenbaugh family - mother father and young son - tell the story of three days in their heavily dysfunctional life in a small town called Joy in Pensylvannia. It flits from one to the other randomly, very few sections being more than two pages long, the majority probably less than a page.
The mother, Abigail, believes rapture is at hand. Her sections are written in a normal(ish) third person present tense.
Her husband, Burns, is a war veteran with PTSD who struggles to leave the basement. His sections are written in second person present tense. This shouldn't work. It's impossible to make second person present tense work as a narrative form
You know this to be true. You know this as surely as you know your own name. You have never seen any example of this style that actually works.
Until you read this book. Possibly because it's intercut so rapidly with the other two voices, possibly just because of the quality of the writing. For whatever reason, this works. And does so brilliantly.
The third voice is that of Willie, the 11 year old son. We experience his world in a first person present tense stream of consiousness. His parent's aberrations have certainly not been a positive influence on his life.
There is a fourth voice that pops up occaionally, the first person plural narrative that opens the book. Never for more than a few lines at a time and always telling of the violence. It becomes clear that this is foreshadowing of the most persuasive type. We have no idea who the character is or who the victim is going to be until very late on in the novel.
Despite the foreshadowing, despite the fact we've been told this is going to happen and there's nothing will stop it, when it becomes clear what is about to happen, the tension becomes unbearable in any case.
This is far and away the best thing Mr Sherrill has written.
And that is truly saying an awful lot.
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