R.S. Jones (1) (–2001)

. Force of Gravity by R.S. Jones

I picked this book up after seeing it described as a charming exploration of character moving between emotional sensitivity and florid paranoia.

And indeed, Emmet is a caring and likeable person, and on one level his descent into madness is humorous. He feels compelled to document everything wrong in the city, and so he memorizes the municipal code, "although sometimes now, he grew overburdened by all he had learned. He found evidence of lawlessness every time he left his apartment. Even when he opened the back door to shake lint from a rug into the neighborhood air, he knew from his pamphlets that he was committing a crime."

After a friend told him that there were cameras in the department stores where he shopped, Emmet became concerned. He "knew he acted suspiciously even when he was alone. He imagined that there were rolls and rolls of negatives of him stored in tin cannisters in darkrooms through-out the city."

As the summer progressed, Emmet's madness deepened, and he began to believe that his neighbors are watching him in shifts from their porches and sidewalks: "Whenever they sensed something out of order, an alarm swept through them like a code tapped through prison walls. People he had never met had begun to nod at him knowingly, as if they had read a dossier in a file somewhere and been made to memorize his photograph. Emmet believed he was the subject they spoke about over dinner, and even, as the days wore on, the person they wrote about in letters to friends and relatives he would never meet."

The second part of the book takes place after Emmet is institutionalized. His roomate believes that Emmet is John Lennon incognito, and begs Emmet to let him in on the secrets of the White Album, and whether Paul is really dead. Other inmates are also vividly and lovingly drawn.

There are serious undertones to this book--mental illness is not all fun and games. However, Emmett is one of the more colorful and engaging characters I've come across recently. Highly recommended… (plus d'informations)

This was one of the most depressing books I've ever read, coming in only second to "The Diary of Anne Frank". It's about a terminally ill man and how a couple of his closest friends come to terms with his illness, their friendship, and the way his expectations of his friends affected them all.

Graphically following the course of his illness, and the changes he goes through as his disease slowly kills him, this novel draws you in but yet at the same time makes you want to turn away in revulsion...exactly the same way his friends felt as they watched this man slowly die. The ill man, William, has AIDS, and the descriptive way the progression of his disease is presented is extremely disturbing.

The book seemed a bit disjointed in the beginning, and throughout the book, the characters seemed rather one-dimensional to me, but that may have been what the author was after....after all, it was all about William, and William and his disease is what more or less consumed the days and nights of his two friends.

Near the end, Henry learns of a betrayal that nearly divides his friendship with William asunder, and Henry struggles with his own feelings of pain, trying to decide whether to return to William's side or turn away completely.

I came away from this book with a greater understanding of the depths of friendship, and how it can be shaken or strengthened when that friendship is threatened by terminal illness. A very difficult subject matter and a very difficult book to read.… (plus d'informations)