The Week You Weren't Here - Softcover

Blackstone, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0954594517 ISBN 13: 9780954594510

Verlag: Flame Books, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

A mid-20s American writer, college graduate (almost), and occasional philosopher. Well, that s at least how his Internet dating profile reads. Hunter Flanagan in reality, or more accurately inside, is obsessive, disturbing, and ambiguous. The Week You Weren t Here is a highly original and experimental story that takes you into the mind of Hunter on his journey from living inside his head into the outside world. Through postmodern prose that unravels jaggedly like a spool of live wire, the narrative seeks to make sense out of his landscape, as it reveals it to be a fragmented, overlapping, entangled juggernaut of a young life. We recognise and sympathise, laugh and loathe, at the mass of contradictions that are his thoughts, his actions and reactions. Hunter is as well versed in literary theory as he is in 1980s pop culture but still can t find the love that relentlessly eludes him despite his best intentions. You ll fall in love with Hunter Flanagan, but at the same time, you ll be relieved that your own confessions, t-shirts, and e-mails will never be yzed by him. You will also find it hard not to admire the brilliance of this entertaining and poignant debut by author Charles Blackstone.

Über diesen Titel

Críticas

To launch his first novel, The Week You Weren t Here, Charles Blackstone utilizes a Franz Kafka epigraph: It amuses me, said K., only because it gives me some insight into the ridiculous tangle that may under certain circumstances determine a person s life. In the novel the person s life is Hunter Flanagan s; the ridiculous tangle, a web of love interests and a forthcoming move to graduate school (after a leisurely stroll through college). Interestingly enough, the Kafka epigraph informs both the novel s strengths and its weaknesses. The Week You Weren t Here is a commendable collage of centrifugal amusements. Yet if insight is important, as it is to Kafka, the novel falls short since the amusements do not lead to a discernable payoff. Near the end of the novel, for instance, we learn that Some people were still innocent not yet corrupted and Hunter envied them. From the reader s perspective, however, Hunter seems nothing other than naive and innocent (and possibly obtuse) throughout: Hunter Flanagan was sure that a few drinks might make her interesting so he didn t mind so much her coming but of course what if Dewey liked him revealed things wasn t coy was forthcoming. Blackstone does succeed when it comes to syntactical innovation. Given the strength of the narrative voice, the reader quickly learns to read Charles Blackstone s sparsely punctuated prose. --Dr Alan Tinkler

Biografía del autor

Charles Blackstone has a BA in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His fiction has appeared most recently in Rio, Wazee Journal, M.A.G.,Whet Magazine, and Opium Magazine. He lives in Chicago where he is presently at work on completing a collection of short stories and another novel.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Flame Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0954594517
• ISBN 13: 9780954594510
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 328
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar