Friday, 16 November 2012

Communion Town: A City in Ten Chapters by Sam Thompson

A hallucinogenic book.  Thompson presents us with 10 chapters, each a different character describing their experiences in a city almost like any other great city: of slums, murders, subway stations, warren-like alleys and bright public façades.  The Flâneur of Glory Port - a Jack-the-Ripper type bogeyman - and deformed mutants haunt the shadows in many of the stories.  The narrators vary in widely in social position and the stories in timbre.  A hard-boiled detective speaks as if channelling Sam Spade, another Sherlock Holmes.  Slaughtermen, immigrants, reclusives, automatons, all speak and reveal a different city, one that is just slightly futuristic, tangible, chilling and mesmerising.

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