Jan. 15
1:41 PM
Review: Mr. Shivers By Robert Jackson Bennett
Let me preface this by admitting that time time got away from me and so I won't be able to do as in-depth a review as I had intended, and as this novel deserves, but so it goes. That said, Mr. Shivers does seem to have already picked up a lot of notice so my skimping here will not hurt sales too greatly, I don't think. And finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I met Robert at World Fantasy and found him to be as perfect a gentleman as ever offered an audience a tipple from a paper bag swaddled bottle of hooch at a reading--and a fine reading it was, allowing me to put his voice in my head as I read. Which was a good thing, not a creepy one.
The novel, then. A beautiful, weird story about a man named Connelly taking to the roads and rails of depression-era America in pursuit of the titular Shiver Man. Not quite horror, fantasy, or any such easily definable genre, the novel is entirely its own thing, and while it will doubtless confound as many readers as it captivates I was thoroughly engrossed. Truly, I can't remember the last time I read a novel so quickly and compulsively, a feat all the more impressive for the fact that the plot has an almost languid pace at times. Mr. Shivers brilliantly walks a line, or rides a rail, between an authentically gritty reality and a dreamlike dustbowl fable, and in the end I was left half-stunned by the experience. A great novel, and an auspicious debut.
The trailer's below, and here's the website, though the flash player on my computer hates me so I haven't been able to really check it out.
