Andrew Battershill

When I started this novel, within a few pages, I thought, Oh hell no. I don't think I'll finish this one.

Something kept me reading a bit more, so then I thought, Fine. I'll finish it. But I'm gonna rip it to shreds.

Then, along the way, damned if Battershill, if not completely winning me over with his narrative style and characterization, at least charmed me.

This is a fucked up little book, with far too many sideroads taken in the name of witty conversation, but overall, it's quite fun.

A couple of examples, if you please.

He was far from drunk, but he did have a pretty solid rear-wheel skid of a buzz on. The sense of a deeper intoxication than he was feeling, held back by the heavy meal draped across the bottom of his belly.

This, to me, is a wildly inventive writer at the top of his game. I absolutely loved these lines.

Then, just six pages later, I got this:

"I'm drunk."

"That's not a good strategy. Announcing it like that."

"There's different kinds of strategy. There's defensive short-term strategies—for example, a person with apparently desirable holes announcing her drunkenness in a bar. But then there is longer-range, equity-based decision making, wherein one must factor in and show awareness of a greater quantity of complex variables. For instance, keeping in mind the paradox of being a straight man in this century, if one is, in fact, living in this century, that showing an awareness of, or merely a vague, implied sensitivity about, rape culture to a drunk-announcing woman in a bar actually sort of makes one seem like one is a wee bit of a rapist that should be factored into one's approach of the afore-mentioned drunk-announcing hole-haver."

This? This is simply an author being clever, while being stupid. Show me one drunk person who could possibly put together that last paragraph, let alone narrate it without their brain shutting down about ten words in.

Thankfully, there's more of the former, and less of the latter, and the characters were interesting enough to see through to the end, which was also fun.… (plus d'informations)

Elements of film noir and classic crime fiction weave dreamlike throughout a convoluted narrative that simply should not work, yet Battershill fully commits to the conceit and batters it into gloriously bruised shape. Pillow is a delightful protagonist, slightly dim yet smarter than he thinks, and his interaction with Emily crackles, aided in no small part by Battershill’s magnificently heightened dialogue. Pillow, like its gangsters, is a surreal experience. It’s also a crackling good read that I’ll soon be revisiting.

Read the rest of the review at The Redeblog.… (plus d'informations)