It's been generally agreed on the list that Scott Phillips's
ICE HARVEST
(2000) was excellent. It's a short book and everything
happens in one long night, Christmas Eve, 1979, in Wichita,
Kansas. Charlie Arglist, a lawyer who helps run some strip
clubs, is driving around visiting and drinking, waiting until
he meets his partner Vic Cavanaugh at 2 am. I saw one review
that said the reader knows what's going on but not what's
happening, and that's a good way of putting it.
Phillips's new book is THE WALKAWAY (2002), and the archives
show that only Mr. Lankford has mentioned it. I read it
yesterday and it's also excellent. It's a much longer book,
with a much bigger scope. It's got two intermingled parts: in
1959, Wayne Ogden blows back into town after coming back from
a stint in the army in Japan; in 1989, Gunther
Fahnstiel
(who we met at the end of ICE HARVEST), walks out the old
folks' home he's in and goes on a senile quest for something
he can't remember. It's the reverse of Arglist's travel in
the first book: Arglist was killing time until a definite
appointment, but Fahnstiel is steadily working to get
somewhere that doesn't exist any more.
ICE HARVEST was very close and tight and linear, and Phillips
exploded for this book. The narrative is complicated and
there are so many characters, related by blood, marriage,
adultery or history, that it takes a while to get it all
figured out.
The best way I can think to explain THE WALKAWAY and ICE
HARVEST is that it's like a big jigsaw puzzle, in three parts
that all fit together into one large picture. There's the
mechanical aspect, where each time a new piece is set in, you
have a better sense of the whole thing. There are some things
revealed in the end that you know must be coming because
that's how the picture has to be. But there are pieces all
the way through that you didn't expect, that make parts of
the picture, or all of it, look very different. There are
little things about the characters that make you see things
10 or 30 years before in a new way, or something about a
conversation that you know will change the way someone's life
will go. It's really pleasing and surprising the way Phillips
locks everything all together by the end.
Phillips has said he wanted to write books like the ones he
likes to read, and he likes the ones we like: Willeford,
Thompson, and Pelecanos, I'd say, among others. He's
definitely his own man, though.
A tip: if it's been a while since you read ICE HARVEST,
reread it before hitting the new book. Everything will fit
together a lot better.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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