Episode 1386: On A Reviewing Roll!

Continuing my spate of productivity in regard to reviews, I finished off the one for Ryan Frawley's Scar this afternoon. I ended up really liking the book, after going through a brief phase where I just wasn't feeling it. I think reading the final third of it in one burst last night helped to sway me in a positive direction. It really does remind me of House Of Leaves, but I don't mean that it's derivative. Whether deliberate or not, Frawley is clearly interested in playing with similar ideas as Mark Z. Danielewski, at least insofar as one is thinking of the novel-as-text object. Would've preferred a bit more subtlety in the footnotes, as that was the only thing I felt was somewhat weak in Scar. Not that they didn't shade the story in interesting ways, but that they sometimes felt too obvious or overplayed. Still, it's a pretty ambitious debut, and really leaves me wondering if there really is something more adventurous about Canadian fiction publishing, or if I'm just making it up based on my limited sampling pool. Or maybe it's more of an indie/small press (as opposed to Canadian) thing? I think that's more likely. As far as reviewing goes, I'm thinking I might try to complete one more this week of Lander Hawes's Captivity for The Conium Review, as I feel bad that it's been quite a while since Ashley Stokes at Unthank Books asked if I'd like to review it and I said okay.