About a month ago I was sent the press release for Pike and noticed a striking blurb from Charles Yu that I had no idea was coming. It pretty much made my day, and I meant to post it when it happened, but you know how things go.
Whitmer’s writing is swift, brutal, precise poetry, formed into the shape of people– breathing, hateful, murderous, vulnerable people that I care about deeply now. His characters are broken to begin with, and yet he breaks them open again and again, each time revealing a darker, thicker black sludge inside, and yet, this is also a story about innocence and trying to protect what tiny amount there is. There isn’t a trace of sentimentality in here, but whatever tiny embers of warmth that are to be found in this devastated landscape (a landscape so bleak it approaches, at time, allegory, and yet remains disturbingly visceral), those embers are completely earned and the meager heat thrown off by them all the more valuable because of it. I feel covered in blood.
“I feel covered in blood” is about the coolest blurb ever. Can’t wait to read it!
Thanks, Edmond. It was a really nice surprise.
keeeeeeewl!
The blurb, I mean.
Thanks, Smoker. How’s business?
Business is way great.
Just smoked up one of the sleaziest porkers ever to around in its own muck hereabouts; results are succulent, to say the least.