Falling - Hardcover

Colin Thubron, an acclaimed travel writer, has also written a number of highly-praised novels, most recently, To the Last City.

A man in prison; a seedy circus; a beautiful star of the big top who transcends the mere spangles of her act; a girl who dabbles in stained glass--these figures would seem to endow Thubron's ( The Hills of Adonis ) second novel with a surrealistic surface and a compelling psychological undercurrent. And for the first third of the book, the pages do turn quickly, as prisoner and protagonist Mark artfully tells us (or does not tell us) why he is in the pen. What is the tragic accident to which he obliquely and repeatedly refers? Why do most people react to him with horror and yet with sympathy? The implied answers are tucked mysteriously into the novel's intriguing interstices. All too soon, though, the plot loosens: instead of continuing to narrate with Mark's voice, Thubron begins inserting weaker narratives told from the points of view of secondary and sometimes minor characters. Most of these are never fully realized, so that even a climactic act of euthanasia seems but a plot device, distancing Mark rather than revealing him. By the time this odd and promising story ends, readers may well feel set adrift.
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