Customer Reviews

The Loss of Leon Meed: A Novel

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4 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

In the early pages of Josh Emmons' splendid first novel, THE LOSS OF LEON MEED, the author notes that dreams and the imagination, "like all engines of terror and transcendence, can do anything," and with those words guides the reader into this delectable story. The book explores the ambiguous conjunction of reality and the imagination through the intertwined experiences of a cast of about a dozen main characters. It is an audacious and spellbinding debut.

The mysterious Leon Meed, who appears and disappears throughout the novel, is perplexed by his journey into, and out of, the lives of the townspeople of Eureka, California, just as those residents are puzzled by Leon's sudden appearances. This gives the book a fascinating structure and provides for moments that are both comic and evocative as Emmons explores traditional themes of loss, love, redemption, and forgiveness.

Emmons is a solid novelist--and, if he ever turns his hand to short fiction or screen plays, he'll prove to be an excellent writer in those genres as well. He has a wonderful gift for characterization, dialogue, and sensory description. The cast of characters is varied, by age, gender, race, national origin, and personal experience. He is equally adept, for instance, at creating a young Korean who longs for love and wants to start his own restaurant, a black man who is a recovering alcoholic, and a middle-aged female school teacher whose marriage is dissolving. Emmons is also capable of making the small town of Eureka into one of the novel's main characters.

I won't give away the story. It is too good to spoil. Emmons can do amazing things with language to evoke moods and feelings and characters. He is in firm control of this material, but one of the things I most admire about the book is that the author doesn't tie things up neatly. This is a novel about mysteries, about the important things in life that are hardest to grasp. The book's emotional and beautifully written epilogue--perhaps the most affecting passage in the book--leaves the reader with a deep appreciation for the power of the unknown.

This is a terrific book. Don't miss it.

For anyone living in northern California and has spent time in Eureka, this book is a must. It is beautifully written both in tone and description.

I had difficulty putting this book down. As someone who grew up in Eureka, I was impressed with how Josh Emmons was able to capture the essence of the town, of Humboldt County and in general of the lost coast of California. For those not familiar with the area, you will feel like you've been there after reading this book. Each character was a true representation of the odd mix of people one can find in this strange town in one of the most beautiful places in California. I couldn't wait to find out what was next in store for each character as I turned the pages.
Lines like "it was 4:30 and Barry was not gay" - to describe a young man at the cusp of admitting his homosexuality to himself - were constantly popping up in this book. The writing is fresh and takes chances.
Loved it.

The author manages at once to evoke the vast expanses of the astral planes and the microscopic and endless labyrinths of the human heart. From the first page, drawn deftly into the into the familiar, yet layered world of Eureka, California, I was hooked. Emmons takes us into the lives of a disparate troupe of seekers--some of whom do not know, at first, that they so yearn--all whirling around the cryptic figure of Leon Meed. Eureka is not just the setting of this book, it is the feeling that one gets on the last page. I had never been to Eureka, but now I can say I have found it. Thanks to this author. Buy this book!

This is one of the smartest, funniest, most well-written novels I have ever read. How Emmons manages to lasso a dozen different characters-all of them real, all of them alive-into a single forceful narrative set in Eureka, Ca. (of all places) defies imagination. It is a Tolstoyian feat that, alas, may be lost on those who prefer Potter to Proust. Emmons is that rare talent that, like Murakami, implants unforgettable images into the minds of his readers, not through gimmickry or stylistic affections (are you listening Saffron Foer?) but the old fashion way: through smart, simple, and clean prose. Prose so clean you can eat off it. This is literary genius. Eureka, indeed!

Josh Emmons has created an imaginative, page-turner of a novel with a host of charactors from the mists of northern California. The charactors seem like Humboldt County singulars, reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson's grotesques from Winesburg, Ohio. An excellent, comic and complex first novel.

"The Loss of Leon Meed" is a book you don't want to leave for a second. I read it in two days, captivated by the painfully real characters making their way through the quirky alternative culture of Eureka, California--each character as distinct as this hideaway town. Josh Emmons has done something I haven't seen in recent novels--somehow he's raised the questions of how we interpret the ghostly, the bodily, the miraculous and the mundane, all at once in this amazingly crafted, sometimes hilarious story. Because of all the unanswerable questions this book approaches, I think it is perfect for book group discussions. It's endless with possibility. I'm telling everyone I know about this book.

The whacky, compelling, suffering characters living in Eureka, California unravel the mystery of the missing Leon Meed. Will these lives that have been torn apart ever mend? What is Leon's true gift? Travel destiny's switchbacks while enjoying the witty, fluid writing of this soon-to-be-famous writer. Unexpected sex.

The Loss of Leon Meed reads like a cross between Jonathan Franzen and Philip K. Dick. It's the book Dick might have written if he hadn't been busy churning out ninety or so novels a year. A great read!

Few things please me as much as an ambitious debut. And with TLOLM, Emmons has given us just that! Expertly juggling a large, colorful and wildly divergent cast of characters in Eureka, California, Emmons manages to achieve a sort of Dickensian fluidity with the mysterious disappearing act that is Leon Meed as his nexus. These characters will stick with you.