Customer Reviews

Do Everything in the Dark: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished reading this book for the fifth time (!) since its release in 2003. That's how much I love it. Gary Indiana is one of my favorite contemporary writers. I've read most of his published fiction, and love it. But this is my favorite. In addition to the black humor, art-world gossip, dirty sex, and overall camp tone that characterizes GI's fiction, this book also has real heart, but without sentimentality.

Do Everything in the Dark tracks a dozen related characters through the summer preceding 9-11. A presentiment and preoccupation with untimely death via plane crashes, physical disease, mental illness, bodily violence, creative burnout, and drug addiction permeates the narrative. Nevertheless, 9-11 is never mentioned. (The last scene takes place three days before the attacks). In this sense I think this is the best novel "about" 9-11, because it's all about the mindset that preceded it. The last chapter (I won't give it away) is devastating. This is such a cliché, but I have to say it, because in this case it's true for me: I have laughed and cried whilst reading this book. The characters are so real I wonder and worry about them. And for anyone who has experienced (or witnessed someone experiencing) a major depressive episode, the Denise-Caroline storyline is just gut-wrenching and real and true. It's one of those moments in literature where you think, "How could he [the writer] know that?"

Because it reads like a roman-a-clef (GI is both the narrator and an eponymous though deliberately underdeveloped character) one recognizes fairly obvious references to Cookie Mueller, Nan Goldin, Ron Vawter, among others, so it's fun to try to guess who the other characters represent, even if you realize that as most writers do, GI has most likely created composites. That being said, I am DYING to know who "Tova Finkelstein" is based on. She can't really be Susan Sontag, can she? Not even GI would dare! Now that is some gooooood gossip.

Laid out in the form of "a game of triple solitaire," Gary Indiana's sixth novel is beautifully written, and it skillfully evokes a certain near-great, over-40, Bohemian crowd in New York, allowing the reader to peer into their bedrooms at home and their vacation accommodations in Ibiza, Santa Fe, Provincetown, and Istanbul. Yet they suffer, stricken by dope and booze and fear of failure, and if this makes it possible for certain readers to return gratefully to rather unglamorous lives, it is also perfectly realistic; only the narrator remains something of an enigma. The story ends at about the same moment as Paul Auster's "Brooklyn Follies," but to his credit Gary Indiana builds up to the brink of the cataclysm with more credibility, realizing that a return to self-obsession is only a matter of time. Highly recommended for mature, literate readers.

Amazing book! I just finished grad school at CalArts and I felt like this book was a snapshot of me and my colleagues in 20 years time...(of course, we can't afford new york anymore, but you get the idea). I am in awe of Indiana.

You want to turn away from the downward spiral of these characters but can't. Well written,funny, but also tragically sad, Gary Indiana follows a group of people living in New York, Santa Fe and one through Istanbul.At the start of this, I really didn't know if I was going to finish. More than anything else I found myself getting depressed.It's very funny at times, but there were moments I just wanted to take a shower afterwards to shake it off. Aging, depression, empty one nighters,drug addiction, and psychotic episodes. Guess this is why they call it a black comedy.