Word: wray
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...Wray still has plenty of novels left in him, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that his next one will be the one. Even now I’m not complaining. Only hoping. Like I said, I like “Lowboy”—because it’s likable, though, not because it’s great...
...Wray lets Will tell his own story half the time, and gives the other half to Detective Ali Lateef, who’s leading the subway-centric manhunt. The novel is ripe with divergent identities: Will and his alter ego, “Lowboy”; his mother Yda and Lowboy’s name for her, “Violet;” Lateef and his given name, “Rufus White.” The alternating perspectives of the narrative themselves constitute a sort of double identity, mirroring the dynamic between the world of institutions above ground...
...perspective gets handed back and forth every chapter, which becomes monotonous over time and feels artificial as the story itself gets more dynamic. Still, the alternation lets Wray probe Will’s psyche from a number of different angles without having to stop and reflect, Victorian novel-style. Lateef, on the other hand, is a stock character; the spiritually exhausted public servant, who experiences a mid-career crisis of confidence and develops an inappropriate affection for Violet Heller. Somehow it seems like this is supposed to illustrate the novel’s metaphysical import. It just doesn?...
Lots of things about the novel do work. Wray deposits moments of exposition at key points in his apparent madcap narrative, showing the careful planning and loving consideration of a first-rate writing talent. His prose flies along with the unstoppable force of a subway train, but he can still make me pause and wring my heart out over poor Lowboy...
...schizophrenia, but that’s simply a fact of his fictional life no matter how much it tugs at my heartstrings. So—what? If I’m going to invest myself in “Lowboy”—or in John Wray, for that matter—I need to know that his story matters not just to his mother and him. I need to know that it matters...