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| This is it, whispered Carter, the nest of the Nephilim, the layer of the Archon. |
I don't think I was asked to honour the old convention
that a freebie necessitates an honest if gently favourable review (at least I
can find no written proof). I will however, name-check the generous (and
possibly over-ptimistic) @TheWorkshyFop,
editorial director of the independent British publisher, Dodo Ink, from whose proof boxes of new
November lead titles this one arrived. Thank you, sir!
I recall James Miller, specifically Lost
Boys, from the dim and distant past. It may have been a commission for
Waterstones Books Quarterly, or perhaps I was doing a solid for the Little,
Brown sales rep. Regardless, I remember nothing about the book except being
underwhelmed. From reading old reviews, it seems it had the coat-tails of the
contemporaneous zeitgeist in its teeth, but one slightly savage Guardian
review* points out it was pretty badly done. This might explain why I
remember very little, perhaps proving Auden's assertion that, "some books are undeservedly
forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered."
I'd feel pretty bad (smug, but bad) laying into Miller's new
book simply because it uses a form of the Quixotic found-manuscript trope,
particularly as I've been guilty of exactly the same. However, it does; an
email exchange with a paranoid scribbler leads to the receipt of a collection
of short related stories which the 'author' publishes.
In truth, they're a lot of fun, if rather profane. There are
some weak characters, notably the academic on his way to investigate an archaeological
discovery, but the cast of trailer trash, crazy evangelicals, suffering
children, internet porn stars, and vampires (why not?) is very entertaining,
each with their own thread of unreliable, interwoven narrative, and the mysterious
anomaly afflicting Iowa is suitably intriguing. It is a pop-culture tour of the
American sewers. But I found there was little meat in this sandwich, it was
perhaps a little too trim, and it left me unsatisfied. I'd have loved to have
read this fleshed out into a longer form, and while I'm not sure Miller has
matured any further than my hazy powers of recollection can judge, at least
he's writing something I actually want to read. If I was in the habit of giving
ratings, it might merit a three-and-a-half out of five, but I'm not so it
doesn't. Give it a shot.
*Admittedly by James Hawes, a chap whom erstwhile booksellers in Cardiff may remember occasionally plagued the stores with pleas to stock his novels Rancid Aluminium and A White Merc With Fins, to no avail (but also where there was avail, he would come in to turn them face out on the shelves and move them, alphabet be damned, to more prominent shelves).
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