Ablutions - Patrick deWitt.epub

Ablutions: Notes for a Novel; the debut novel by Patrick DeWitt--EPUB



Patrick DeWitt is a Canadian writer currently living in Oregon. His most recent novel, The Sisters Brothers, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize this year (2011). DeWitt’s black humor comes through in a direct, spare, and hyperrealistic style. The Sisters Brothers struck me as similar in its humor to A Confederacy of Dunces, and in its weirdness like a Pynchon or, in its violence, a stripped down Cormac McCarthy. It is was a very easy and approachable read, and one of my very favorite books of the year; and I’m excited to have found Ablutions, The Sisters Brothers’ predecessor.




FROM BOOKLIST:

In an old Hollywood bar where the tinsel is tarnished, a barback (bartender’s helper) falls in love with whiskey and barbiturates. Fascinated by the down-and-outers who line the bar—a man with a police fetish, a former child actor, an artist who won’t show his napkin drawings—he falls hard and soon is practically one of them, save for the fact that his grudging camaraderie has been replaced by a vicious mean streak. The subtitle, Notes for a Novel, is key: its second-person voice is driven by imperatives to “discuss” each character and event. These scenes are stunningly depicted, but the barback remains a cipher, the plot is barely a sketch, and the book feels unfinished. It’s hard to say whether this is deWitt’s artistic intention or whether he has a greater ambition unrealized. His use of “you” diminishes but doesn’t dissipate an echo of recovery memoir; given the age, readers will wonder if this is autobiographical. But deWitt writes beautifully about ugliness, and his book casts a haunting spell. His Notes show great promise.

Read more at http://www.amazon.com/Abluti...7335717/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF...