![]() ![]() In the aftermath of his horrific injury, Sean spends a lot of time staring at hospital ceilings – face wrapped in bandages, ears ringing unbearably. Like Darnielle’s lyrics for his band the Mountain Goats, the prose is spare yet fervent, both distant and rawly exposed, making for an eerie, awkward and compelling novel that immediately demands a second read. Along the way it explores isolation, creativity and the permeable membrane between outer and inner worlds how childhood dreams and teenage obsessions colour the infinite expanses of the mind and how far we can share our interior journeys. ![]() John Darnielle’s elliptical debut novel, which was longlisted for a National book award in the US, circles around the question of what Sean knows, and what he is able or willing to tell us. ![]() And then of course the child asks why, and Sean has to say he doesn’t know. But when a five-year-old approaches him as he sits in the park, he finds himself explaining what happened. Most people can’t look at him, let alone ask about the “glistening folds and reconstructed arches” he is left with. ‘What did you do to your face?” Sean has led a solitary existence since the catastrophic incident half a lifetime ago, in a teenage bedroom in suburban California. ![]()
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