Early Review: The Swap

The LibraryThingification of A Rapturous Verbatim continues!

Striving fervently to be a good member of LibraryThing and specifically of its Early Reviewers program, I once more offer my review of a book that I received before it was published but has long since appeared on store shelves.

Today's review is of British author Antony Moore's debut novel The Swap, first published in August 2008. For the benefit of those who don't typically look at my LibraryThing profile, I've reprinted the review I've written below, so that it might get a bit more exposure for those who might be interested in the book.

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Antony Moore's debut novel The Swap is, much to this reviewer's surprise, a better novel than I think it intends to be. With its close-up comic-book cover, a somewhat self-deprecating back cover blurb, and a hero who's greatest aspiration turns out to be little more than screwing up as little as possible, one would probably enter this book with low expectations. And with a few exceptions (including a sadly egregious one), one would be right.

The novel begins with a brief scene between two children, in which one inexplicably exchanges his pristine copy of Superman One for a useless length of pipe. The two go their separate ways and we recover their trails twenty years later: the young thug who gave away the comic has turned out to be Harvey Briscoe, a fat chain-smoking nothing who runs (poorly) a comic shop and endlessly rues the day he gave away his most prized possession. The occasion of his high school reunion heralds the return of the man he swapped with, Charles "Bleeder" Odd, who has become marvelously successful and, Harvey presumes, might be willing to give back the comic and let bygones be bygones.

From this simple setup, the novel spirals quickly out of control. Murder and misappropriation set the wheels into motion, and Moore handles the shift from innocent scheme to diabolical plotting with ease. If there is any complaint to be had about the nature of the mystery, it is that the substance of the murder, and the clues that spring up every now and then, are minimal at best. We spend a great deal of time in Harvey's mind as he works out scenarios, but the actual case is far simpler and more niftily resolved than the suspense would lead us to believe.

On the upside, the reader is treated to an in-depth examination of Harvey, a character who turns out to be much more enthralling and more sympathetic than we expect. Without giving away too much of the plot, it still seems fair to say that Harvey's critical flaw is that he makes way too much of the forces that surround him, always opting for the convoluted way out as opposed to the more simple idea. It turns him into a pleasantly complex character: a man whose whole life is comic books finds himself in a hard-boiled mystery that he feels he alone must solve, almost as if he himself is turning into a character. It's a wonderfully executed parallel.

Fortunately, Moore's supporting cast doesn't let Harvey down. The story is populated with characters that are fairly obviously drawn in black and white, and we know from the get-go who is good and who is bad. Jeff, the truly thuggish bully, provides a number of potential conflicts and shifts to the mystery, and though he is pretty unoriginal, he serves his function to the story well. Maisie too is a refreshing but flat love interest, Harvey's foil in many ways but also attracted to him in an unrealistic (but very comic-like) manner. And though Bleeder Odd appears only at a few select moments in the book, Harvey's obsession and description bring him to life like a fine supporting actor.

If the novel's characterization is its strength, though, the plotting of the climax is its downfall. There is a certain amount of inexorability that Moore plants throughout the novel: even though the ultimate resolution of the murder is only a little bit surprising, we see it coming and anticipate that things will all reveal themselves feasibly in the end. Instead, perhaps taking the "cliffhanger" approach, Moore turns the tables on the reader in the final pages, crafting an ending that is as frustrating as it is unsatisfying. It's hard to describe without spoiling it all, but suffice to say that it doesn't seem terribly consistent with the wonderful characterization that was the novel's hallmark. One suspects Moore wanted to throw in one last twist to stun the reader, but it feels more like a punch in the gut than a playful shove. Until the last 20 pages, the novel was fantastic; the final moments, however, felt a bit like a betrayal.

Despite the last-second machinations of a perhaps overly clever author, The Swap manages to elevate itself beyond its presumptively humble origins. The work rises above the level of mere pulp, delivering characters that we care enough about to want to follow them through a journey of increasing (and increasingly unnecessary) complexity. While the audience for such a novel seems hard to pin down, it is a mostly fine example of a classical mystery, smattered with British slang and plenty of vulgarity, yet possessing a surprising amount of heart. It's most certainly worth the read -- well, at least the first 250 pages are. After that, you be the judge.

Early Review: How to Write a Suicide Note

Continuing the series that I began but abandoned a while back, I return to my LibraryThing responsibilities and offer a review of a book that I received for free through their wonderful Early Reviewers program. (Although this one, I'm afraid, has already been published. Damn you, semester work.)

I submit for your approval my review of How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman's life, a book of poetry by Sherry Quan Lee, first published in June 2008. For the benefit of those who don't typically look at my LibraryThing profile, I've reprinted the review I've written below, so that it might get a bit more exposure for those who might be interested in this collection.

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I've spent a substantial amount of time ruminating on Sherry Quan Lee's volume of intensely personal poetry, for lack of the right way to express my feelings about it. It's hard to make sense of a book that is so clearly an expression of genuineness -- it's almost impossible to judge it objectively. This ambivalence permeates much of the collection itself: it falls somewhere between a great achievement and something that just misses the mark.

Despite the attention-grabbing title, How to Write a Suicide Note is far from being strictly about suicide. The collection is divided into a number of sections that are best described as larger "themes," ideas that permeate the section. What Quan Lee does surprisingly well is turn the many reflections in each section into a narrative of sorts, baring her emotions about particular conflicts and then showing, often in more abstract ways, how she comes to grips with those feelings. It gives the collection a very nice sense of unity as a whole.

Where the work starts to feel a little less cogent is in the development of the individual sections. For the most part, we are allowed to see that Quan Lee is struggling with her mixed heritage, her time growing up, and her troubled past relationships. Her treatment of these topics through the poetry is involving but also a little too safe: she often conceals more than she reveals. For these reasons, much of her verse tends to get a little bit repetitive and clichéd. Where more detail could have allowed these moments to stand out from other, similar works, they instead bleed together with both contemporary poetic traditions as well as the other poems in the section. In short, there are few individual poems that stick out as being truly memorable.

Yet she is also unabashed at pointing out that the purpose of the collection is to simply get her feelings out there, and she is to be respected and admired for doing so. Regardless of whether the particular turn of phrase becomes memorable or not, the essence of the poems is intense, and the sparse, simplistic language that she uses is perfectly suited to the situation. Quan Lee, I gather, doesn't hope to change the world or open up larger avenues for multiracial peoples, but we get a strong sense of the struggle she personally must deal with. If nothing else, the collection comes off feeling (sometimes uncomfortably) like a published diary -- an individual venting and, in so doing, coping with her life.

That writing is a coping strategy is perhaps the collection's greatest strength. Littered throughout the sections, and particularly through the first section, we get wonderful imagery about the act of writing and its transformative qualities -- and it is here that Quan Lee shines. If the collection itself is an introspective look at personal demons, the treatment of the personal, individual act of writing lends an additional air of authenticity to the proceedings. It also gives the collection the sense of urgency that would otherwise be missing: we feel as if the poet needs to get the words out in order to stay alive and, for better or worse, what we are reading is the result of that intense need.

As I have already mentioned, however, with that sense of urgency comes a feeling that the collection is a bit too touch-and-go. It's hard for me to judge because I have very little experience with reading contemporary poetry, but I feel as if the collection, though already spare, could have used a little more pruning in order to truly have a stronger impact. And in the end, How to Write a Suicide Note feels like it's caught between what it is and what it wants to be, and that makes it mediocre at best. As an artifact, it is moving; as a work of literature, it is wanting.