Customer Reviews

the muse and the mechanism

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

 

 

If you like Kerouac,
If you've ever made a rug angel,
If you've ever danced with abandon,
If you've ever made a journey of the soul,
If you've ever looked at the world through a haze of clarity...
this book is for you.
Author josh davis certainly has a muse within...

Here is a book that is about living nowhere, trying to name unnameable fractures, being young and feeling old, spinning and swirling until you fall down.

You should read it, not because it is about any of these things, but because it is young, because it feels old, because you probably don't read enough books these days, because you almost certainly don't read enough books this stumblingly graceful, and because it might make you fall down.

Though the back jacket insists this is the author's second novel, Davis writes with all the confidence of a seasoned veteran. His characters team with life and depth, each racing around the idiosyncrasies of their age (mostly twenties) with an all-too-familiar realism. His central character, Charlie Fell, is a classic literary idealist portrayed without much back story, or even a trace of a job, but is instead a strict present tense wonderer bent only (only?) on understanding everything, and everyone. He and his friends engage themselves in a seemingly endless series of domestic adventures, experimenting with the usual suspect substances, and handling romance as if it were a china dish at one moment, and a lit stick of dynamite the next. By the closing chapters of the book, everyone seems to have become involved with everyone else, and the small town backdrop of Alton begins to stir with a palpable volatility. Starkly human, often funny, and thoroughly beautiful, this is not your average novel; rather it's a young author's imagination edging ever closer to the ideal.

i give five stars to everyone because it's either that or give no stars to everyone. i believe in equality which makes me a nihilist. i like to stare at the pretty pretty stars. maybe this book is good. maybe it isn't. either way, everyone should buy it. but all this is is the beginning of a marketing campaign.

This book is so beautifully written the words alone can make you cry. Josh Davis has an amazing talent for leading the reader on a journey of self-discovery and realism. The self-discovery is not just his, but ours, as we remember our youthful experiences and relive them through his eyes. The characters are so real, you will find yourself wondering if he has been spying on you, or knows your friends and acquaintances. I recommend this book not just to people who are young, but also to anyone who is "young at heart," or is seeking to understand today's youth. I look forward to the next work which will surely follow from this gifted young author.