The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem

 

This was my evening read, a novel that probably takes itself much, much more seriously than Hendrix's. It's not much better, really, but it sure takes itself much more seriously. It has Things to say, and doesn't let you forget it. It couldn't be more the product of a coastal urban liberal if it tried, and it conveys the sense of having been rugpulled better than it does anything else. I suppose the desert hippy-dreg communities are plausible-- I know they exist, I've seen one--but the ease of sliding into and out of them seems beyond what can suspend my disbelief. The fact the physical climax (involving an escape from a Ferris wheel prison) and the emotional one (involving an escape from a luxury resort) are separated as they are is also a little weird. Not a bad book, but not the deathless literature some of the blurbs on the cover seem to imply.