Customer Reviews

Erased

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

 

 

Explaining the plot of a Jim Krusoe novel is like talking a friend through the hairpin turns of a marvelous, fantastical dream: halfway through you realize it's not just about what happens next, but about some mysterious and vital knowledge. ERASED explores questions that can't be answered, but that must be asked: what does it mean to cross over from life to death? How different are those two states, really? And what better way to puzzle that out than to go on a Kafkaesque rodent hunt and a deeply ironic yet fully redemptive tour of Cleveland? (Well, why not Cleveland?) I loved this book for its piercing gaze, its absurdist heart; its humorous soul. I'll read it a third time on one of those afternoons when I want to feel meditative--but also laugh.

This is a strange and fascinating book. It's a blend of magic realism and dirty realism. It's set in nitty-gritty Cleveland and the mundane realities of the hero's life are hilariously described in minute detail. He's a dealer in garden tools leading a placid life into which inexplicable events keep intruding. His mother has supposedly gone to Cleveland and drowned while fishing, but he only hears of the event from being sent a newspaper cutting. Then he starts getting postcards from her. He goes to Cleveland to solve the mystery, rents an apartment above a [...], and keeps getting false clues and meeting people who offer to help then disappear and reappear in odd ways.

Jim Krusoe is a subtle writer, wonderfully ironic and funny. So many scenes in his books will make you laugh out loud. Formerly a poet, he takes his gift for language and transforms it into the world of fiction.

There are some funny and insightful parts at the beginning of this book. And while the topic is interesting, there is just something missing. The protagonist of this story is forced into a mystery regarding his mother's disappearance. Using a simple plot to make a point about how death is final and somehow always knocking at our door was a nice idea, but the overall story telling ability fails as it seems that the author just piled on or patched together remnants of various characters without bringing their metaphorical existence to the fore. In the end, without giving away the author's realization, this could and would have been a much better short story by delving deeper into the symbolism and existentialism attempted to be applied throughout it. A good attempt but I wasn't taken away and I wasn't disappointed to have finished the book. This is one of those purchases I made based on Amazon's suggestions; I threw caution to the wind, and it did not pay off.

Cleveland - land of enchantment! - is the setting for this wild ride of a novel. The writing is superb, the humor unlike anything I've read by any other writer. Makes me want to crawl into Krusoe's brain to figure out what makes it work the way it does.

The writing is fine but the characters and plotline are silly, simply for the sake, it seems, of silliness. A few funny tangents but mostly jokes with no pay-offs. The various women's clubs and supposedly "eccentric" characters don't take us anywhere. I wanted to love this book, I really did. My wife forced me to finish it so we could both agree on how bland it was.