Samedi The Deafness by Jesse Ball

Nick graduated in English. I like to give him crap about how the books he reads are pretentious, and yet I never read them myself. Finally, he convinced me to try one out.

I was expecting Samedi The Deafness to either be really hard to read, or just not make sense. Surprisingly, this was one of the easier books I have read as of late.  The structure is odd, like prose poetry rather than that of a more traditional novel. It's broken up into small digestible chunks of writ, and so even though it's quirky, it isn't difficult. The story moved along quite smoothly. The main character, James Sim, discovers and man stabbed to death in the park and becomes involved in a mind bending mystery of sorts with a hospital of liars, a thieving love interest, and a plot of terrorism over the United States. It felt like a spy novel and (as many others have stated) a Kafka story and kept me interested and entertained throughout.

Nick probably picked this book for me to read on purpose, knowing that it was an instantly satisfying tale. Now I need to read more of his books to find pretentious fodder, 'cause I did not find it here.