Customer Reviews

Man Gone Down

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This clearly isn't a book for everyone, but I found it engrossing until the very end. The book is clearly rooted in the search for and struggles with identity. In many respects, it is a contemporary, post-integration era counterpart to Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man". The narrator's mixed race ancestry and largely White environment will make the book accessible to White audiences, but also should create some discomfort. The narrator's upbringing provided certain material and social advantages but also placed him in a marginal place in the world. Still, his main friends are White, as is his wife and he muddles through the obvious prejudice (racial and class-based) from his mother-in-law. The White people in his life are marginal in their own way, but the advantages of who they are carry them on better. Some of the class based issues (e.g., growing up poor in a rich suburb) cut across race, but don't overshadow it. For the narrator having Irish (and Native American) ancestry doesn't change his situation much--what ever value people put on race often fails to advantage people of mixed race backgrounds and, for the narrator, it adds to his confusion about his place in the world. Like most people, the narrator has surmounted significant hurdles such as alcoholism and less than attentive parents. On the other hand, he never fully met what other people saw as his potential, academically or occupationally and he is out of synch with most people his age, even while raising a family. His story reminded me of people who had grown up in strongly integrationist families or who otherwise found themselves outside the mainstream of African-American life.

This is not a book for people seeking simple linear story telling. It is a realistic walk through a few weeks of a man's life, although the walk is filled with backward looks and sideways glances at people, places, and events in the narrator's life. The book is basically about the struggle for identity and a place in the world, but it is not a conventionally psychological treatment, nor does it embrace the rhetoric of cultural studies or conventional identity ideology, although one can extract some of these things from the prose if one wishes. Rather, it is a realistic interior monologue with all the inconsistencies and contradictions that go with that. Some aspects of the narrator's life get surprisingly little treatment like his decision to stop drinking and his subsequent sobriety. In some ways, he seems to have simply found ways to not make that a big feature in his life.

The ending knocked a star off for me. Without offering a spoiler, let me say that it's a "surprise" that makes clear that the narrator's interior life is very different from what other people see. That point is pretty evident elsewhere in the book and I'm not sure anyone needs to be hit over the head with it, although the story clear needed some destination, if not resolution. Despite the ending being a "surprise" of sorts, it wasn't unexpected and it seemed pat and unworthy of the rest of the writing to me. It would have fit a short story better, where the narrative form often requires plotting that has some dramatic conclusion.

Still, this is an excellent book for someone who is willing to enter someone else's life and accept another person's view of the world. To the extent that White liberals (and some conservatives) often tend to see racial issues as confounded with class, the book deftly captures where that perspective is wanting. Many people, particularly White people, may want a colorblind world, but it's far from there and we have to think about how to live in the world we have with the people in it.

Sometimes it is riveting, sometimes I give it 5 stars because it was just the thing I needed to put me to sleep. But overall, an IMMENSELY satisfying read. You go on a journey with the main character as he tries to figure himself out, care for his family, and figure out where he belongs in the world - and finally be OKAY with it. He's kinda crazy, but very endearing.

There are parts of the book where you wonder what in the HELL he is talking about because of the rambling, but just as you begin to get exasperated, Thomas hits you with a brilliant passage like an espresso shot and you sit up and pay attention again. You get sick of the character but can't put the book down. You want to put the book down due the rambling, but you want to know what happens next to the character - and also know that more pleasure is to be found in the journey! This book is a literary K-hole. Heh heh heh

What works BEST to put it all into perspective is reading the discussion questions at the end of the book (in addition to being well-read), and then it will all come into place. So that is why this book is a winner and I would definitely read it again.

This is a book that I disliked at the same time that I couldn't put it down. There is brilliant writing here and wonderful insights that stay with the reader long after the book is finished. There is an examination of the African American and mixed race experience that rings true and important. But there is seemingly endless "introspection" fueled by depression and perhaps narcissism that prevented me from being completely engaged. Because all other characters are viewed only through the narrator's egoistic worldview, they never become any thing close to real. We, like the narrator, can only guess at their motives. The most blatant example of this problem is the ending - which is singularly unbelievable and unsatisfying.

This book is not for everyone. At times, this book seems not to be for anyone. Except maybe the author. Therapy for which the readers pay the patient. I don't know if this is just another car crash from which the reader can't turn away or if Michael Thomas is, in fact, some sort of sleeping genius, but Man Gone Down certainly has a way of keeping the reader reading, in spite of itself.

If you are a patient, compassionate reader, this book might be for you. Your patience will be tested when the narrator goes off into these torturous, self-conscious rants about every little thing. You'll need more than a little compassion to stay on our guy's side as he creates awkward situations out of otherwise routine social encounters and makes others--presumably innocents--suffer under the weight of his weirdness.

Though he is generally well meaning and without identifiable malice, this guy, our guy, is not always easy.

But there are some great interactions between our guy and whoever. The black woman, Judy or Jane?, at the bar. Gavin, Brian, and Shake. Marco and the two summer associates at dinner. Marco and the Blue Bloods on the gold course, etc. These are all great scenes and they help carry the text. Watching our narrator fumble through interactions with other people is ultimately more sustaining than his internal rants about the simplest of things.

But there is something to be gained from even the most tedious portions of Man Gone Down. It's interesting to see how and why a black man who is, in some ways, so overwhelmed by race, ends up marrying a white woman and having to deal with the whiteness, or lack thereof, of his children and his adopted world. It's insightful to get into the mind of a "damaged" and socially awkward guy and see how ordinary interactions that most of us take for granted can be torturous and awful for others. Man Gone Down is a great choice if you're a person truly fascinated with the intricate minds and (beautifully?) imperfect lives of other people. But come prepared with patience (and liquor?). You'll certainly need it.

I read "Man Going Down" after finding it listed as one of the top ten books of the past year by the New York Book Review editors. I had just finished the marvelously well written "Little Heathens," a rollicking memoir of growing up in rural Iowa during the Depression, also a top ten pick. Just before that I had read Alexander McCall Smith's "Love Over Scotland Street," written with that author's trademark mature, assured tone and unrivaled sensitivity. I mention these other two books because I think they affected my views of the Michael Thomas novel.

Thomas also writes with sensitivity, although he lacks the masterful insight into each character found in McCall Smith. Glaringly obvious is the lack of emotional (although not intellectual) maturity. I realize he was attempting a "stream of consciousness" style, but that style grows increasingly wearisome as the pages go on...and on. The book would have been better if it had been edited by...perhaps, half. It is tiring to the reader to have many issues explored but remaining unresolved, to have bitterness brought up and examined many times but never healed, to have characters and situations arbitrarily float through the pages in what might even be called sci-fi fashion. At the end of over 400 pages, we know the author very well, but the other people in his life, scarcely at all.

Thomas has exceptional promise, but he needs seasoning. I look for better books from his pen in the future.

...to what, despair?

This novel was difficult for me to read. It contains such truths, such painful insights and observations that I felt the burden of the narrator as my own.

No, his story is not mine. Not even close. However...

Art is a collaborative process. The art...and the observer, the watcher, the reader, the listener. What's on the canvas, the stage, the page, in the air, as processed by its audience. If the art resonates, if it strikes a chord, if it manages some degree of connection, then something greater is created. (This is why some fair-to-middlin' films are afforded 8/10 ratings by some; something in the movie worked especially well for them, they were *moved*.) 'Man Gone Down' resonated for me. I could identify with his pain, with his struggles, with his summary observations about Life. And so I struggled mightily to get to the end. And at that end, I was affected.

Mr. Thomas is a remarkable writer. He is a 'writer's writer'...though I am unsure after reading this début, whether he's a storyteller's writer. But as the tale is told in a very self-indulgent, very 'ordered stream-of-consciousness' way, it's hard to determine as to how his considerable talents will translate to something more 'conventional'.

But 'Man Gone Down' is a tour-de-force. It's got some magnificent portions, stuff of greatness, just as it also trips and falls. But as the theme of the novel is perceived tripping and falling, the torpor induced by habitual tripping and falling, even these mis-steps managed to push things along.

"Maybe the only thing worse than believing everything has some kind of meaning is believing that everything doesn't."

I cannot recommend 'Man Gone Down' without reservation. (Which is why I can fully appreciate any variance in review scores.) But even as heartbreaking as its nihilism can be, in its sustained tone, in the way Mr. Thomas manages the narrative within this sustained tone, there is a certain degree of comforted provided the reader sufficiently open to the experience. I was not able to figure out how the protagonist would have answered the question 'What do you want?', but there's something to be said for the artist who can relate so much, so touchingly to so dark a subject. I was dumbfounded up to the end, but I appreciate what I had endured.

I picked this book up while wandering through the store and was immediately struck by the poetic narrative. I love books that exemplify good writing, and the first few pages of "Man Gone Down" left me hungry for more. My husband asked, "What's it about?" to which I couldn't really answer, but insisted I loved the "voice" of the story.

Well, a couple hundred pages later the "voice" is getting tiresome amidst a plot consisting of wandering around the streets of New York moping, kicking around a friend's house moping, flashbacks consisting of a lot of mopingly not participating in scenes around him and instead drinking and, you guessed it, moping. I found myself heading to bed every night (I do my reading before bed) actually thinking, "Maybe tonight something will happen."

It doesn't. Nothing happens. Except a LOT of moping. Granted, it's beautiful, prosaic moping, but prose isn't a substitute for a story or character development that goes as deep as "moping and black and moping."

I tried to find the story in this book for days. Nothing. The rambling, scattered, self-absorbed whine of the narrators journey was the predominant theme. I kept hoping and wanting the story to take off, but it never did. There were opportunities, but nothing ever happened to develop the narrators view beyond his own day to day weariness. There could have been a complex and rich look at the world from the narrators eyes, but this book fell short of any real exploration of the intricacies of mixed race family in a prejudiced society trying not to look like one. None of his relationships that could have been developed were, nor was there any development or exploration of his own psyche. There could have been an amazing story to tell, but it was lost. I did not find the writing brilliant. It was drone-like. Very disappointing.

Do you want to spend 400-plus pages with a self-obsessed, self-loathing and incredibly bitter unnamed narrator? It's a tough task but the raw, rambling, stream-of-conscious rant "Man Gone Down" rewards readers who stick it out to the end. Centered around a self-described "black Irish Indian" filled with a "black-iron locomotive" of rage, the story reads more like an extended journal entry or perhaps a bizarre revenge fantasy for real and perceived slights than a conventional novel with a narrative and plot. What set-up there is goes like this: an aspiring but professionally frustrated writer with a hyper-sensitivity to racism spends a few days wandering the streets of New York, trying to work up the courage to return home to his white wife and three kids. He spends most of his time reflecting on his past as a drug-addicted teenager, his present life with a woman whose love he suspects of being insincere, and an unclear future that could involve financial ruin. Writer Michael Thomas jumps back and forth in time with an approach that is best summed up by the narrator himself, who is also working on a novel of individual, seemingly standalone episodes. He writes, "Perhaps I had only disconnected thoughts and anecdotes flaring up in me like bouts of gastritis." Thus, a chapter might start with the narrator going out to dinner, but he never gets there because the story goes off on a tangent about his misadventures growing up in Boston. (From a technical point of view, "The Known World" and "Waterland" do this non-linear dance with more style.) After that, the last third of the novel turns into an unexpected page-turner with a more traditional storyline. And even though the overwhelmingly depressing "Man Gone Down" concludes with a pop-song-worthy imperative to return home to where your loved ones are, it's a happy ending that's earned.

If you like Thomas Wolf, without the gratuitous use of five-dollar words, then you might like "Man Gone Down. (One section certainly could have been called "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn", which had to be its influence.) However, if you savor construction, narrative and plot over ranting, then you will find this book frustrating and disappointing. Granted, these are well-written rants, but, after the book's wonderful, promising launch, I found myself often wondering, "Where is this going?" All too oftenthe answer is "Nowhere".