Thursday, December 3, 2015

December Reread - Sleeping in Flame - Jonathan Carroll

A former coworker and fellow reading enthusiast recommended this author's books to me ages and ages ago, and I read the ones I could get ahold of at the library and liked them quite a bit. So when I came across this book on the office's book exchange shelf a few years ago I happily brought it home to see if things were as good as I remembered. I didn't remember any details about the books, to be honest, just that I had enjoyed them.

I am happy to report that I did in fact enjoy this book, even if I now see it as the obvious product of a Baby Boomer in the 1980s. And not just because of the lack of modern conveniences like cell phones; it's the way the characters are preoccupied with things that people today just aren't, or at least aren't in the same way as they may have been then. Does that make any sense? Probably not, sorry.

In any case, the writing is solid and the story is nicely done and keeps the reader turning pages. The magical realism is cool; this book is sort of like an Americanized/Europeanized Murakami story in that it starts out as any other fictional novel and then takes a turn for the strange that's interesting. If you're a fan of books with magical realism, you'll probably enjoy this one too.

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