Book: Zed
Elizabeth McClung's novel is keeping me up.
Zed is having a bad day. She's twelve and there's someone around who's killing kids, which she doesn't have time for. Already today she's knifed a rapist, traded with half the drunks and addicts in town, talked to the dead, bargained with a sociopath, and extracted crucial information from a mental patient, and she hasn't even left the building. Welcome to the Tower, an urban development project no city wants to lay claim to; a place to steer clear of if at all possible, but if you can't, you'll fit right in.
Zed is a vivid, claustrophobic, at times nightmarish novel about madness, survival, and crumbling institutions; it is an epic set in the sqalor of an inner city, where rules are abandoned, and it's every man (and young girl) for him or herself. In the spirit of J.G. Ballard or Iain Banks, this is a novel of verve and feverish, expansive imagination.
Zed is having a bad day. She's twelve and there's someone around who's killing kids, which she doesn't have time for. Already today she's knifed a rapist, traded with half the drunks and addicts in town, talked to the dead, bargained with a sociopath, and extracted crucial information from a mental patient, and she hasn't even left the building. Welcome to the Tower, an urban development project no city wants to lay claim to; a place to steer clear of if at all possible, but if you can't, you'll fit right in.
Zed is a vivid, claustrophobic, at times nightmarish novel about madness, survival, and crumbling institutions; it is an epic set in the sqalor of an inner city, where rules are abandoned, and it's every man (and young girl) for him or herself. In the spirit of J.G. Ballard or Iain Banks, this is a novel of verve and feverish, expansive imagination.
posted by Yoga Korunta | 00:01
11 Comments:
this sounds like a good book.
She is not easy. This is a new style for me and gives balance to others on the nightstand.
i'm not worried... i have so many different genre's of books on my nightstand you wouldn't believe it. :)
That's a lie, I am easy - at least that's what it says in many university restrooms.
Thanks for getting the book and recommending it - I actually got it out of the library last week and was suprised how unharsh it was - I go back to my original statement that it is kinda a modern "Winnie the Pooh"...with switchblades.
By the way, since you like words you might like some of the double word meanings I leave in there (particularly when Luc is speaking) since I tried to have as many victorian meanings as possible.
Barbie, I read the more straightforward books when Zed makes me think too hard. Having grown up in Ohio, one must consult a dictionary and count on his toes!
Elizabeth, it's an honor to promote one whose writing skills so exceed my own. And where were you in my hour of need!?!
elizabeth, i can't wait to read it!
I checked it out on Amazon.com and it looks terrific. Thanks for the recommendation; I'm always looking for something new to read.
You're welcome. It's a pleasure to help another blogger!
It sounds like an interesting metaphor for what it's like to be 12: feeling trapped in a strange world, with the horrors of a changing body.
Zed handles herself far better than I could have at that age. The more I read of her the more I'm glad to have found the Poet Laureate. I owe the woman who introduced us a mug o' grog.
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