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Running
From the critically acclaimed author of Be Safe I Love You comes a dark and breathtaking novel....
Running brings together an ensemble of outsiders who get by as “runners”—hustlers who sell tourists on low-end accommodations for a small commission and a place to stay.
Bridey Sullivan, a young American woman who has fled a peculiar and traumatic upbringing in Washington State, takes up with a queer British couple, the poet Milo Rollack and Eton drop-out Jasper Lethe. Slipping in and out of homelessness, addiction, and under-the-table jobs, they create their own kind of family as they struggle to survive.
Jasper’s madness and consequent death frame a narrative of emotional intensity. In its midst this trio become linked to an act of terrorism. The group then splinters, taking us from Athens to the cliffs of the Mediterranean, and to modern-day New York.
Whether in the red light district of Athens or in the world of fire jumpers in the Pacific Northwest, we are always in a space of gorgeously wrought otherness. Running shows novelist Cara Hoffman to be writing at the peak of her craft.
Running brings together an ensemble of outsiders who get by as “runners”—hustlers who sell tourists on low-end accommodations for a small commission and a place to stay.
Bridey Sullivan, a young American woman who has fled a peculiar and traumatic upbringing in Washington State, takes up with a queer British couple, the poet Milo Rollack and Eton drop-out Jasper Lethe. Slipping in and out of homelessness, addiction, and under-the-table jobs, they create their own kind of family as they struggle to survive.
Jasper’s madness and consequent death frame a narrative of emotional intensity. In its midst this trio become linked to an act of terrorism. The group then splinters, taking us from Athens to the cliffs of the Mediterranean, and to modern-day New York.
Whether in the red light district of Athens or in the world of fire jumpers in the Pacific Northwest, we are always in a space of gorgeously wrought otherness. Running shows novelist Cara Hoffman to be writing at the peak of her craft.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published February 21, 2017
About the author
Cara Hoffman
19 books224 followersHOFFMAN is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Running, So Much Pretty and Be Safe I Love You. She has written for the New York Times, Marie Claire, Salon, and National Public Radio, and is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades including a Folio Prize nomination, and a Sundance Institute Global Filmmaking Award.
She has been a visiting writer at Columbia, St. John’s and University of Oxford.
She currently lives in Manhattan.
She has been a visiting writer at Columbia, St. John’s and University of Oxford.
She currently lives in Manhattan.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
December 8, 2016
Enigmatic and atmospheric, Cara Hoffman's newest novel,
Running
, is the story of the relationships which leave an indelible mark on our lives, and the secrets we keep both from each other and ourselves.
Bridey Sullivan arrives in Athens in the 1980s, fleeing a life of tragedy and dysfunction in Washington State. She immediately meets Jasper Lethe and his boyfriend, one-time boxer Milo Rollack, and she joins them in becoming a "runner," essentially a shill paid a small commission to attract tourists to a run-down Greek hotel. There is a thriving culture of these runners in Athens, many of whom spend their paltry salaries on alcohol and drugs, and engage in both friendly and not-so-friendly tactics to drive the tourists to their hotels.
"We'd drifted south from the same lost places to find this life."
Bridey, Milo, and Jasper form a family of sorts, which becomes more and more complicated by Bridey's infatuation with Milo, and Jasper's increasingly erratic behavior. When a scheme to try and make some quick money gets them peripherally involved in an act of terrorism, it signals the end to the trio's idyllic life, and lead to significant changes for each of them.
I wasn't sure about this book at first, but it hooked me fairly quickly. These characters fascinated me, with their raw emotions, their passion, and their mysteries, and it was interesting to see how helter-skelter their lives were while they were running. Hoffman's portrayal of the relationships between the characters was very powerful and I can't stop thinking about them.
Running shifts back and forth in time and place, from Bridey's childhood in Washington before she left for Athens and Milo's working-class existence in Manchester, England, to Athens, to an isolated house on the cliffs of the Mediterranean, and modern-day New York City. At times it takes a moment or two to figure out where in the plot the narrative of a particular chapter falls, and that takes some getting used to, and in many instances, the plot leaves you with as many questions as it does answers, so I'd love to talk with Hoffman about what ideas lay behind these characters.
I read Hoffman's first novel, So Much Pretty , shortly after its release in 2011, and I remember being impressed by her storytelling ability. (Interestingly enough, as you can see from my review, one of my chief criticisms of that book repeats itself here.)
I love the way she's grown as a writer in the last five years, and think this story of how the relationships we form when we're younger often stick with us our entire lives won't be forgotten anytime soon. This may not be a book for everyone, but if you can get your mind around this type of life, you'll be rewarded with a beautiful story.
NetGalley and Simon & Schuster provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!
See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
Bridey Sullivan arrives in Athens in the 1980s, fleeing a life of tragedy and dysfunction in Washington State. She immediately meets Jasper Lethe and his boyfriend, one-time boxer Milo Rollack, and she joins them in becoming a "runner," essentially a shill paid a small commission to attract tourists to a run-down Greek hotel. There is a thriving culture of these runners in Athens, many of whom spend their paltry salaries on alcohol and drugs, and engage in both friendly and not-so-friendly tactics to drive the tourists to their hotels.
"We'd drifted south from the same lost places to find this life."
Bridey, Milo, and Jasper form a family of sorts, which becomes more and more complicated by Bridey's infatuation with Milo, and Jasper's increasingly erratic behavior. When a scheme to try and make some quick money gets them peripherally involved in an act of terrorism, it signals the end to the trio's idyllic life, and lead to significant changes for each of them.
I wasn't sure about this book at first, but it hooked me fairly quickly. These characters fascinated me, with their raw emotions, their passion, and their mysteries, and it was interesting to see how helter-skelter their lives were while they were running. Hoffman's portrayal of the relationships between the characters was very powerful and I can't stop thinking about them.
Running shifts back and forth in time and place, from Bridey's childhood in Washington before she left for Athens and Milo's working-class existence in Manchester, England, to Athens, to an isolated house on the cliffs of the Mediterranean, and modern-day New York City. At times it takes a moment or two to figure out where in the plot the narrative of a particular chapter falls, and that takes some getting used to, and in many instances, the plot leaves you with as many questions as it does answers, so I'd love to talk with Hoffman about what ideas lay behind these characters.
I read Hoffman's first novel, So Much Pretty , shortly after its release in 2011, and I remember being impressed by her storytelling ability. (Interestingly enough, as you can see from my review, one of my chief criticisms of that book repeats itself here.)
I love the way she's grown as a writer in the last five years, and think this story of how the relationships we form when we're younger often stick with us our entire lives won't be forgotten anytime soon. This may not be a book for everyone, but if you can get your mind around this type of life, you'll be rewarded with a beautiful story.
NetGalley and Simon & Schuster provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!
See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
March 21, 2017
Cara Hoffman writes the most beautiful righteously angry sentences in contemporary lit. I was totally swallowed up by this novel.
June 7, 2024
“Come with me για να τη βρεις, αν γλεντήσουμε together, η ανάμνηση απ' την Greece θα σου μείνει για forever” είχε τραγουδήσει αμίμητα ο Σταμάτης Γαρδέλης κάποτε, στην ίδια περίοδο πάνω κάτω με τα όσα διαδραματίζονται στους Κράχτες της Κάρα Χόφμαν.
Σε μια εποχή που δεν υπήρχαν ίντερνετ, κινητά και airbnb, που για να ταξιδέψεις κάπου έπρεπε να εμπιστευτείς έντυπους χάρτες και ήσουν προετοιμασμένος να χαθείς αρκετά ή πολύ πριν βρεις τον προορισμό σου, που η λέξη εξευγενισμός έμοιαζε βγαλμένη από βιβλίο επιστημονικής φαντασίας και κάθε ταξίδι ήταν πραγματικά μια μεγάλη περιπέτεια.
Η ανάμνηση από την Greece έμεινε ανεξίτηλα χαραγμένη και στην Κάρα Χόφμαν, αφού η συγγραφέας έζησε λίγο μετά την εφηβεία τον δικό της πλήρως απομυθοποιητικό μύθο στην Ελλάδα και παρουσιάζει μια αναζωογονητικά αντιτουριστική εικόνα της χώρας μας σε αντίθεση τα δεκάδες έργα που δοξολογούν το ένδοξο παρελθόν, τον ήλιο, τη θάλασσα, τον τόπο που γέννησε τη δημοκρατία και όλα αυτά που όλοι γνωρίζουμε. Τόσο ανεξίτηλα χαραγμένη, που αποφάσισε να μοιράσει τη ζωή της ανάμεσα στη Νέα Υόρκη και στην Αθήνα.
Στο βιβλίο πρωταγωνιστούν τα κακόφημα ξενοδοχεία του Σταθμού Λαρίσης, τα βρώμικα και μισογκρεμισμένα δωμάτια, το νέφος μιας ασφυκτικά πυκνοκατοικημένης τερατούπολης, η πολυκοσμία και η φασαρία, τα ιδρωμένα και τα ταλαιπωρημένα από τη ζέστη και τις κραιπάλες σώματα, ήρωες που αναζητούν το τίποτα και βρίσκουν ακριβώς αυτό, που θυμίζουν πρόσωπα βγαλμένα από φωτογραφίες της Ναν Γκόλντιν ή μορφές βγαλμένες από βιβλία μπιτ συγγραφέων.
Ο αγγλικός τίτλος (Running) είναι ιδιοφυής. Η Αμερικανίδα Μπρέιντι και το ζευγάρι των Άγγλων ομοφυλόφιλων, ο μαύρος ποιητής και μποξέρ Μάιλο και ο λευκός αλκοολικός Τζάσπερς, κάνουν τους κράχτες (runners στην αγγλική αργκό) με στόχο να προσελκύσουν τουρίστες στο ξενοδοχείο Όλυμπος για να εξασφαλίσουν δωρεάν διαμονή και λίγα χρήματα για τα ποτά τους, ουσιαστικά, όμως, τρέχουν. Μακριά από το παρελθόν τους, την καταγωγή τους, τους συμβιβασμούς μιας προδιαγεγραμμένης ζωής.
Δομημένο σε τρεις αφηγηματικούς χρόνους και με ολιγοσέλιδα κεφάλαια που εναλλάσσουν την πρωτοπρόσωπη με την τριτοπρόσωπη αφήγηση, το βιβλίο διαβάζεται ως μαρτυρία για μια εποχή που έχει περάσει ανεπιστρεπτί, ως αντισυμβατική ιστορία αγάπης, αλλά κυρίως ως μια ελεγεία για την γοητεία της παρακμής και για τη νεότητα που ξοδεύεται και χάνεται για πάντα.
Δεν ξέρω αν πρέπει να ταξιδέψεις χιλιάδες χιλιόμετρα μακριά από τον εαυτό σου για να καταφέρεις στο τέλος να τον βρεις, αλλά οι Κράχτες είναι ένα βιβλίο που κουβαλά τη βιωματική αλήθεια κάποιας που το κατάφερε.
Σε μια εποχή που δεν υπήρχαν ίντερνετ, κινητά και airbnb, που για να ταξιδέψεις κάπου έπρεπε να εμπιστευτείς έντυπους χάρτες και ήσουν προετοιμασμένος να χαθείς αρκετά ή πολύ πριν βρεις τον προορισμό σου, που η λέξη εξευγενισμός έμοιαζε βγαλμένη από βιβλίο επιστημονικής φαντασίας και κάθε ταξίδι ήταν πραγματικά μια μεγάλη περιπέτεια.
Η ανάμνηση από την Greece έμεινε ανεξίτηλα χαραγμένη και στην Κάρα Χόφμαν, αφού η συγγραφέας έζησε λίγο μετά την εφηβεία τον δικό της πλήρως απομυθοποιητικό μύθο στην Ελλάδα και παρουσιάζει μια αναζωογονητικά αντιτουριστική εικόνα της χώρας μας σε αντίθεση τα δεκάδες έργα που δοξολογούν το ένδοξο παρελθόν, τον ήλιο, τη θάλασσα, τον τόπο που γέννησε τη δημοκρατία και όλα αυτά που όλοι γνωρίζουμε. Τόσο ανεξίτηλα χαραγμένη, που αποφάσισε να μοιράσει τη ζωή της ανάμεσα στη Νέα Υόρκη και στην Αθήνα.
Στο βιβλίο πρωταγωνιστούν τα κακόφημα ξενοδοχεία του Σταθμού Λαρίσης, τα βρώμικα και μισογκρεμισμένα δωμάτια, το νέφος μιας ασφυκτικά πυκνοκατοικημένης τερατούπολης, η πολυκοσμία και η φασαρία, τα ιδρωμένα και τα ταλαιπωρημένα από τη ζέστη και τις κραιπάλες σώματα, ήρωες που αναζητούν το τίποτα και βρίσκουν ακριβώς αυτό, που θυμίζουν πρόσωπα βγαλμένα από φωτογραφίες της Ναν Γκόλντιν ή μορφές βγαλμένες από βιβλία μπιτ συγγραφέων.
Ο αγγλικός τίτλος (Running) είναι ιδιοφυής. Η Αμερικανίδα Μπρέιντι και το ζευγάρι των Άγγλων ομοφυλόφιλων, ο μαύρος ποιητής και μποξέρ Μάιλο και ο λευκός αλκοολικός Τζάσπερς, κάνουν τους κράχτες (runners στην αγγλική αργκό) με στόχο να προσελκύσουν τουρίστες στο ξενοδοχείο Όλυμπος για να εξασφαλίσουν δωρεάν διαμονή και λίγα χρήματα για τα ποτά τους, ουσιαστικά, όμως, τρέχουν. Μακριά από το παρελθόν τους, την καταγωγή τους, τους συμβιβασμούς μιας προδιαγεγραμμένης ζωής.
Δομημένο σε τρεις αφηγηματικούς χρόνους και με ολιγοσέλιδα κεφάλαια που εναλλάσσουν την πρωτοπρόσωπη με την τριτοπρόσωπη αφήγηση, το βιβλίο διαβάζεται ως μαρτυρία για μια εποχή που έχει περάσει ανεπιστρεπτί, ως αντισυμβατική ιστορία αγάπης, αλλά κυρίως ως μια ελεγεία για την γοητεία της παρακμής και για τη νεότητα που ξοδεύεται και χάνεται για πάντα.
Δεν ξέρω αν πρέπει να ταξιδέψεις χιλιάδες χιλιόμετρα μακριά από τον εαυτό σου για να καταφέρεις στο τέλος να τον βρεις, αλλά οι Κράχτες είναι ένα βιβλίο που κουβαλά τη βιωματική αλήθεια κάποιας που το κατάφερε.
April 25, 2024
Οι κράχτες είναι ένα "επάγγελμα" που ομολογώ πως δε γνώριζα πως υπήρχε -πέρα από αυτούς στις εισόδους εστιατορίων στα τουριστικά θέρετρα. Η ιδέα της Hoffman να επιλέξει ως ήρωές της μερικούς νέους ανθρώπους που ασκούσαν αυτό το "επάγγελμα" αποδείχθηκε άκρως ενδιαφέρουσα.
Η ιστορία επικεντρώνεται σε ένα τρίο απογοητευμένων και επιρρεπών στη βία νεαρών. Μια αμερικανίδα, η Μπράιντι συναντά στην Αθήνα του '80 τον Μάιλο και τον Τζάσπερ, ένα ασυνήθιστο ζευγάρι Βρεττανών. Και οι τρεις είναι άνθρωποι που χάθηκαν και ψάχνουν τον εαυτό τους παράλληλα με το πως θα βγάλουν την επόμενη ημέρα. Και οι τρεις είναι κράχτες: με αντάλλαγμα ένα δωμάτιο και μερικά βιβλία παρασέρνουν αφελείς τουρίστες, κατά προτίμηση νεαρούς σπουδαστές σε ξενοδοχεία της πρωτεύουσας όπου τους κρατούν τα διαβατήρια στο τσεκ ιν, προτού διαπιστώσουν το πόσο παλιά και βρώμικα είναι τα δωμάτιά τους.
Στην πορεία συναντάμε αρκετούς δευτερεύοντες αλλά ενδιαφέροντες χαρακτήρες - δορυφόρους που εμπλουτίζουν τ��ν ιστορία και συνάμα γεννούν ερωτηματικά, ενώ οι εναλλαγές στο πρόσωπο και τα διαρκή μπρος πίσω επιτείνουν την αγωνία για την εξέλιξή της. Μια περιπετειώδης περιπλάνηση στην Αθήνα της δεκαετίας που γεννήθηκα αλλά γνώρισα μέσα από αφηγήσεις τρίτων και φωτογραφίες-ντοκιμαντέρ, που μου φαίνεται τόσο κοντινή και μακρινή ταυτόχρονα.
Η ιστορία επικεντρώνεται σε ένα τρίο απογοητευμένων και επιρρεπών στη βία νεαρών. Μια αμερικανίδα, η Μπράιντι συναντά στην Αθήνα του '80 τον Μάιλο και τον Τζάσπερ, ένα ασυνήθιστο ζευγάρι Βρεττανών. Και οι τρεις είναι άνθρωποι που χάθηκαν και ψάχνουν τον εαυτό τους παράλληλα με το πως θα βγάλουν την επόμενη ημέρα. Και οι τρεις είναι κράχτες: με αντάλλαγμα ένα δωμάτιο και μερικά βιβλία παρασέρνουν αφελείς τουρίστες, κατά προτίμηση νεαρούς σπουδαστές σε ξενοδοχεία της πρωτεύουσας όπου τους κρατούν τα διαβατήρια στο τσεκ ιν, προτού διαπιστώσουν το πόσο παλιά και βρώμικα είναι τα δωμάτιά τους.
Στην πορεία συναντάμε αρκετούς δευτερεύοντες αλλά ενδιαφέροντες χαρακτήρες - δορυφόρους που εμπλουτίζουν τ��ν ιστορία και συνάμα γεννούν ερωτηματικά, ενώ οι εναλλαγές στο πρόσωπο και τα διαρκή μπρος πίσω επιτείνουν την αγωνία για την εξέλιξή της. Μια περιπετειώδης περιπλάνηση στην Αθήνα της δεκαετίας που γεννήθηκα αλλά γνώρισα μέσα από αφηγήσεις τρίτων και φωτογραφίες-ντοκιμαντέρ, που μου φαίνεται τόσο κοντινή και μακρινή ταυτόχρονα.
February 24, 2017
So...this was bad. Running is a book about "runners" in Greece. Basically, runners are street kids who make a living by hustling tourists to come stay at their shitty hotel. They grab tourists off the bus, talk them into staying at their place and get a cut after the unsuspecting folks have paid their bill. This is one of those books that tries so hard to be artsy and literary by bouncing around in the narrative a lot, while not really telling you anything. Instead, certain acts and characters are just hinted at and you're supposed to glean what's actually happening from these tiny little drops of information. Unfortunately, what's actually happening is rather dull, and I just could not get into the narrative at all. It kind of reminded me of a really bad knock off of a Donna Tartt novel, if that makes sense to anyone. It's a neat concept and I love the descriptions of hanging out on an island in Greece, but I just could not get into any of the characters as there seemed to be no link from chapter to chapter.
September 18, 2016
I regret to say I hadn't read any of Hoffman's work before this book.
Running is mesmerizing in its restrained and stark lyricism.
I enjoyed aching through every evoked emotion, trekking behind her characters in their pursuit of losing themselves or reclaiming their real selves.
Kept me reading throughout the idiosyncratic mapping of the heroes, the half-told realities and their untold destinies.
A rewarding read from the very first sentence to the last period.
Running is mesmerizing in its restrained and stark lyricism.
I enjoyed aching through every evoked emotion, trekking behind her characters in their pursuit of losing themselves or reclaiming their real selves.
Kept me reading throughout the idiosyncratic mapping of the heroes, the half-told realities and their untold destinies.
A rewarding read from the very first sentence to the last period.
February 12, 2017
Original available at: https://herewearegoing.wordpress.com/...
Every so often we dedicated, obsessive, addicted readers are gobsmacked out of literary complacency by a writer's voice so new, so different, so arrestingly outlier we rediscover the joy of being book-crazy.
The first for me occurred in my early teens when I read Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays. Three times in a row. For decades I tried to infuse everything I wrote with Didion's sardonic meticulousness, a spare, surgical precision of language and illuminating detail, all of which were built on a foundation of unrelenting despairing over the diminution of hope and possibility of basic, human goodness in the world . Of course, I failed.
It took the encouragement and insight of a writer and writing teacher, Bart Yates, during a summer I spent at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, to finally allow me to embrace my own voice; a style that is Balzacian in its digressions and parenthetical ramblings, circuitous and discursive, because I think and see reality in that way: tessellation layered on tessellation, variously opaque and transparent depending on the angle of approach, fluid, kaleidoscopic, without edges or boundaries, morphing into something new between the first and final word of each sentence. I work by piling on stratum, like coats of paint but in slightly different shades in slightly different shapes, a pentimento which, I believe, is the result of having spent a life talking to people I thought spoke my language but who, it turned out, received from me messages I never meant to send or say. It is, I know, difficult to believe when reading my words the amount of time I spend re-writing and editing; but I do. I cut everything I write by at least a third after the first draft.
Now, while I've found encouragement from the occasional reader, literature professor, and some book-world professionals, much as I never found the man with whom I could form a lasting relationship, I also never found the agent who said, "Yes, this is a voice I think I can sell." There is no doubt that my writing, like my personality, has a limited, short-term trick sort of appeal. But it is, without question, writing that could come only from me.
All of which is to say, when one reads a hundred books a year and comes across a voice and work so unique one is forced to read and think in a new way, it is cause for celebration.
From the opening pages of Cara Hoffman's Running, there was just such an explosion of Saturnalia in my grateful reader's brain and heart. This isn't a novel which, having finished, you feel you've read so much as an experience you feel you've lived. Cara Hoffman's gut-level writing has a visceral effect: you feel it. Listen to the opening paragraph:
Jasper died a week before I returned to Athens, so I never saw him again. They carried him out and down and he died in England, or maybe on the plane. There were witnesses in the lobby. There was a story in the newspaper. There was, the drunk boy said without raising his eyes to meet mine, proof.
That is a slap in the face of a first sentence. It shocks, this near keening pronouncement of sorrow, grief, and loss. It has the same effect as hearing a too-personal confession from a stranger on a bus, and depending on what kind of person (and reader) you are it will repel or fascinate --- or both. Note too the rhythm of those five sentences: The first, with its dichotomy of long, beautiful lilt composed of horrifying words; the second, another lilt but broken up into a triad of tragedy and confusion: They carried him out and down/ and he died in England / or maybe on the plane; and then the third and fourth sentences, a continuation of what had begun in the triad, the staccato, cold, factual punch of loss; and finally, the fifth sentence, which, with its commas, slows us down, finishes us off, seems to promise an explanation for the surfeit of mysterious information in this disclosure.
Spare. Precise. Didion-like. And, extraordinarily illuminating while still leaving us much in the dark.
The first person voice belongs to Bridey Sullivan, seventeen-year-old American who has drifted to Athens where she meets queer couple, Jasper Lethe and Milo Rollack, and the three form a dangerously explosive --- literally and figuratively --- family who survive by being runners, which are "expats who trawl trains in search of unsuspecting tourists to bring to low-end hotels in exchange for drink money and a free place to stay."
Bridey's narration alternates with third person sections, focused mostly on Milo's experiences and point of view, and while these are more distant than Bridey's telling of the story, they are more revealing, divulging more history; we know more facts about Milo than we do about Bridey and Jasper.
Jasper. He is the most unknown and yet the most vivid, the one with whom you are most likely to fall in love, the most naked of emotion and unguarded in action, naif and monster. He has echoes of Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited --- both in his habitual drunkenness and what appears to be a purposeful slide from well-bred, upper crust British-ness into spent, sordid, wandering wastrel. And, too as in Brideshead, there is the triangular love affair, and the disastrous and heartbreaking mistake of loving people for what is inchoate, for that which we imagine them to be rather than accepting them for who they are.
By the same token, we (and these characters --- to one degree or another) want to be loved for who we have pretended to be, for the delusions in which we wrap ourselves. The novel jumps in time --- frequently --- like memory, which brings me to what I find to be the real genius of this literary treasure.
Cara Hoffman writes in a way close to magical in its likeness to real life. Reality isn't linear; knowing people isn't a matter of she was born, she went to school here, then this then that. No, life and knowing people is a process of dribs and drabs of gathering information, impressions made and assumptions affirmed or corrected, a concatenation of disparate events and experiences, emotions and the evolution of cognizance of spirit. In Running, as in life, we are not so much handed information about the characters or told what to think, instead, we are shown who and what and how they are, here and there, allowed --- well, required to interpret and fill-in and come to our own conclusions.
And what a gift. There is a transcendent beauty in the sculpted, plangent prose, much of which is describing an oppressive heat and ominous atmosphere of danger and threat. Ennui is somehow made romantic, anomie a goal. Listen to this sentence about two experienced runners, Stephan and Candy:
They were ten years older than the rest of us, and vastly more accomplished at being gone.
Isn't that beautiful? And, later (although, earlier too --- god, I love how Cara Hoffman plays with time and memory) there is this when Bridey asks Milo --- with "Jasper's pale body lying sated between them," --- this question; "Why are you here?"
The question startled him. There were many reasons and he was sure she knew them all. Jasper's voice, her strange face. The heat of day. The warm sustained painlessness of drink. The music on the platform. The feeling that everything had already ended and this was the place you go after it's over. He was there for the sound of Jasper's breathing, his mouth, his cock. Her eyes upon them. Everything's a symbol, a shape replacing the thought that created it. All the words they'd swallowed, the words they couldn't say. He knew it was the drug of their bodies had him thinking like that night after night. The nearly invisible down on the back of Jasper's neck had poisoned him. Why was he here? Who would look after Jasper, he thought, if he wasn't?
Pardon my lack of erudition and breeding, but, holy shit that's some gorgeous prose and syntax coupled with trenchant, remarkably unexpected and stunningly revealing insight, a cacophony of sensual impression, emotional reaction, personal philosophy, building to a climax of wanting to be needed, and all told in the voice of a poet, which Milo becomes, many of his pieces of the narrative taking place long years after the center of his life, this Athens, this running, with Jasper, with Bridey.
I know, I am going on too long, as I always do, and quoting too much, which I feel I must when the words are so hypnotically gripping. So, before I go, let me say that the final page, its three paragraphs, those six sentences, are breathtaking in their perfection. Without giving anything away, I quote this part of one: "...people gaze in awe at a reconstructed ruin."
Yes, that, because we, the readers blessed with this unique, arresting, daring, blazingly moving novel, are here, looking back at human ruinations, remade into something beautiful in an entirely different way.
Cara Hoffman deserves a wide readership and Running places her --- for me --- in that pantheon of modern-day writers and innovators of literary fiction whose next gift to us I eagerly await, knowing of the hundred books I read a year, it will be one that not only does not disappoint, but expands and enlightens me. I know myself well enough to know that now, for a few weeks at least, I am going to have to FIGHT the urge to try to write with a voice like Cara Hoffman's, which is a voice you MUST READ.
Every so often we dedicated, obsessive, addicted readers are gobsmacked out of literary complacency by a writer's voice so new, so different, so arrestingly outlier we rediscover the joy of being book-crazy.
The first for me occurred in my early teens when I read Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays. Three times in a row. For decades I tried to infuse everything I wrote with Didion's sardonic meticulousness, a spare, surgical precision of language and illuminating detail, all of which were built on a foundation of unrelenting despairing over the diminution of hope and possibility of basic, human goodness in the world . Of course, I failed.
It took the encouragement and insight of a writer and writing teacher, Bart Yates, during a summer I spent at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, to finally allow me to embrace my own voice; a style that is Balzacian in its digressions and parenthetical ramblings, circuitous and discursive, because I think and see reality in that way: tessellation layered on tessellation, variously opaque and transparent depending on the angle of approach, fluid, kaleidoscopic, without edges or boundaries, morphing into something new between the first and final word of each sentence. I work by piling on stratum, like coats of paint but in slightly different shades in slightly different shapes, a pentimento which, I believe, is the result of having spent a life talking to people I thought spoke my language but who, it turned out, received from me messages I never meant to send or say. It is, I know, difficult to believe when reading my words the amount of time I spend re-writing and editing; but I do. I cut everything I write by at least a third after the first draft.
Now, while I've found encouragement from the occasional reader, literature professor, and some book-world professionals, much as I never found the man with whom I could form a lasting relationship, I also never found the agent who said, "Yes, this is a voice I think I can sell." There is no doubt that my writing, like my personality, has a limited, short-term trick sort of appeal. But it is, without question, writing that could come only from me.
All of which is to say, when one reads a hundred books a year and comes across a voice and work so unique one is forced to read and think in a new way, it is cause for celebration.
From the opening pages of Cara Hoffman's Running, there was just such an explosion of Saturnalia in my grateful reader's brain and heart. This isn't a novel which, having finished, you feel you've read so much as an experience you feel you've lived. Cara Hoffman's gut-level writing has a visceral effect: you feel it. Listen to the opening paragraph:
Jasper died a week before I returned to Athens, so I never saw him again. They carried him out and down and he died in England, or maybe on the plane. There were witnesses in the lobby. There was a story in the newspaper. There was, the drunk boy said without raising his eyes to meet mine, proof.
That is a slap in the face of a first sentence. It shocks, this near keening pronouncement of sorrow, grief, and loss. It has the same effect as hearing a too-personal confession from a stranger on a bus, and depending on what kind of person (and reader) you are it will repel or fascinate --- or both. Note too the rhythm of those five sentences: The first, with its dichotomy of long, beautiful lilt composed of horrifying words; the second, another lilt but broken up into a triad of tragedy and confusion: They carried him out and down/ and he died in England / or maybe on the plane; and then the third and fourth sentences, a continuation of what had begun in the triad, the staccato, cold, factual punch of loss; and finally, the fifth sentence, which, with its commas, slows us down, finishes us off, seems to promise an explanation for the surfeit of mysterious information in this disclosure.
Spare. Precise. Didion-like. And, extraordinarily illuminating while still leaving us much in the dark.
The first person voice belongs to Bridey Sullivan, seventeen-year-old American who has drifted to Athens where she meets queer couple, Jasper Lethe and Milo Rollack, and the three form a dangerously explosive --- literally and figuratively --- family who survive by being runners, which are "expats who trawl trains in search of unsuspecting tourists to bring to low-end hotels in exchange for drink money and a free place to stay."
Bridey's narration alternates with third person sections, focused mostly on Milo's experiences and point of view, and while these are more distant than Bridey's telling of the story, they are more revealing, divulging more history; we know more facts about Milo than we do about Bridey and Jasper.
Jasper. He is the most unknown and yet the most vivid, the one with whom you are most likely to fall in love, the most naked of emotion and unguarded in action, naif and monster. He has echoes of Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited --- both in his habitual drunkenness and what appears to be a purposeful slide from well-bred, upper crust British-ness into spent, sordid, wandering wastrel. And, too as in Brideshead, there is the triangular love affair, and the disastrous and heartbreaking mistake of loving people for what is inchoate, for that which we imagine them to be rather than accepting them for who they are.
By the same token, we (and these characters --- to one degree or another) want to be loved for who we have pretended to be, for the delusions in which we wrap ourselves. The novel jumps in time --- frequently --- like memory, which brings me to what I find to be the real genius of this literary treasure.
Cara Hoffman writes in a way close to magical in its likeness to real life. Reality isn't linear; knowing people isn't a matter of she was born, she went to school here, then this then that. No, life and knowing people is a process of dribs and drabs of gathering information, impressions made and assumptions affirmed or corrected, a concatenation of disparate events and experiences, emotions and the evolution of cognizance of spirit. In Running, as in life, we are not so much handed information about the characters or told what to think, instead, we are shown who and what and how they are, here and there, allowed --- well, required to interpret and fill-in and come to our own conclusions.
And what a gift. There is a transcendent beauty in the sculpted, plangent prose, much of which is describing an oppressive heat and ominous atmosphere of danger and threat. Ennui is somehow made romantic, anomie a goal. Listen to this sentence about two experienced runners, Stephan and Candy:
They were ten years older than the rest of us, and vastly more accomplished at being gone.
Isn't that beautiful? And, later (although, earlier too --- god, I love how Cara Hoffman plays with time and memory) there is this when Bridey asks Milo --- with "Jasper's pale body lying sated between them," --- this question; "Why are you here?"
The question startled him. There were many reasons and he was sure she knew them all. Jasper's voice, her strange face. The heat of day. The warm sustained painlessness of drink. The music on the platform. The feeling that everything had already ended and this was the place you go after it's over. He was there for the sound of Jasper's breathing, his mouth, his cock. Her eyes upon them. Everything's a symbol, a shape replacing the thought that created it. All the words they'd swallowed, the words they couldn't say. He knew it was the drug of their bodies had him thinking like that night after night. The nearly invisible down on the back of Jasper's neck had poisoned him. Why was he here? Who would look after Jasper, he thought, if he wasn't?
Pardon my lack of erudition and breeding, but, holy shit that's some gorgeous prose and syntax coupled with trenchant, remarkably unexpected and stunningly revealing insight, a cacophony of sensual impression, emotional reaction, personal philosophy, building to a climax of wanting to be needed, and all told in the voice of a poet, which Milo becomes, many of his pieces of the narrative taking place long years after the center of his life, this Athens, this running, with Jasper, with Bridey.
I know, I am going on too long, as I always do, and quoting too much, which I feel I must when the words are so hypnotically gripping. So, before I go, let me say that the final page, its three paragraphs, those six sentences, are breathtaking in their perfection. Without giving anything away, I quote this part of one: "...people gaze in awe at a reconstructed ruin."
Yes, that, because we, the readers blessed with this unique, arresting, daring, blazingly moving novel, are here, looking back at human ruinations, remade into something beautiful in an entirely different way.
Cara Hoffman deserves a wide readership and Running places her --- for me --- in that pantheon of modern-day writers and innovators of literary fiction whose next gift to us I eagerly await, knowing of the hundred books I read a year, it will be one that not only does not disappoint, but expands and enlightens me. I know myself well enough to know that now, for a few weeks at least, I am going to have to FIGHT the urge to try to write with a voice like Cara Hoffman's, which is a voice you MUST READ.
July 26, 2017
5 brutal but beautiful stars. I just fell into this story and did not want to come out. Not only could I not stop reading this, I wanted it to go on and on. I loved the way Hoffman doled out the story. Some reviewers were not fans of how the chapters jumped around in time, but I loved how it built tension in the story. I'm so happy I picked this up and look forward to reading more by this author.
2017 MacHalo Challenge: Book to feed your wanderlust
2017 MacHalo Challenge: Book to feed your wanderlust
April 24, 2024
άντε 2.5/5 - ίσως φταίει και το κακό timing.
November 30, 2016
I am a fan of Hoffman and her great ability at telling stories. Her two previous novels moved me and this one surprised me because it is a new 'voice' from her. Hoffman sticks with her restrained writing style in this new piece, proving that less is more. The three misfits in RUNNING are brought to life in beautiful prose. They work to survive as best they can, scamming tourists in Athens. Homelessness, drug addiction, madness and terrorism, Hoffman fills their lives taking you around the world with them. However you feel about these three after you close the book, you will think about them afterwards. Brilliant writing.
March 3, 2017
I am a Cara Hoffman fan and was so excited to see she had a new book. Unfortunately I am in the minority in not liking Running. I did not enjoy the story or relate to the characters. The narrative was bewilderingly disjointed and flipped between points of view and points in time. I did not find the characters lifestyles to be poetic or even interesting. A strange book.
March 21, 2017
Really hate the technique of time and character flux in the narrative. Didn't find the characters were well developed because of this. Hated all of the characters and felt their motivations were not significantly presented.
November 10, 2017
The city was like a beacon. And it drew us from wherever we'd been left. For me, the outskirts of a smoke jumpers' base in a cold mountain town, for Jasper and Milo the London suburbs and rain-soaked council housing of Manchester. We were looking for nothing and had found it in Athens: Demeter's lips white as stone, Apollo's yellow mantle sun washed, sanded, wind loan to granite.
I loved this book, absolutely loved it, but I'm not really quite sure why. Reading this was like walking through fire and coming out the other side feeling oddly energized. But I am also left feeling a little unsettled, a few itches left unscratched. What was that? What just happened??
4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.
The story is so all over the place with different times, different points of view, different beginnings, and it's difficult to know where to start my review.
We could start with the blurb on the back, from Rae Meadows:
Running is an unstoppable spark racing along a fuse. There is no escaping the heat, grime, or glittering underbelly, but the bond between three young drifters is infused with moments of transcendence.
Or we could start at the beginning:
Jasper died a week before I returned to Athens, so I never saw him again. They carried him out and down and he died in England, or maybe on the plane. There were witnesses in the lobby. There was a story in the newspaper. There was, the drunk boy said without raising his eyes to meet mine, proof.
Which is such a great opening passage - leaving me with so many questions I want answered! Who is Jasper? How did he die? Who is the narrator? Why did she leave Athens, why did she come back, how does she feel about Jasper's death? Was it sudden? Did they expect it? Proof of what? How does it change things? (Frustratingly, not all of these questions will be fully answered.)
Or we court start with this passage:
I first arrived in Greece by boat the year before, and didn't have money for meals. I had been hungry on that trip from Brindisi in a way I'd never experienced before. The heat, the vast, wind-filled open ocean, dark water shining like mercury beneath the sun; bright blue sky and wind, salt and sweat drying against your skin. I'd had a deck-class ticket and drifted along near the dining room's outdoor tables waiting for people to leave before they finished their meals. Then I'd slip in quickly for their leftovers. People think they need things. Money or respect or clean sheets. But they don't. You can wash your hair and brush your teeth with hand soap. You can sleep outside. You can eat whatever's there.
Once you're in a warm place, you can live for years and years and years on one five-dollar bill to the next.
which I read right before brushing my teeth and showering, and left me feeling very happy to have things like toothpaste and shampoo and conditioner - they felt so luxurious!
Or we could start somewhere else:
The smell of her skin is a drug and her voice carries the sounds of where we've been; strong and strange, the language before language.
... And at night I wake to hear her, laughing in her sleep.
We could start anywhere, and still never be quite sure: did we follow the right path?
One thing, though: the blurb mentioning red-light district and hustling had me expecting this to be about young prostitutes. It's not. A lot of shit goes down, but no one prostitutes him or herself.
December 24, 2016
What a wonderful whirlwind of a book. Cara Hoffman does an incredible job transporting the reader to 1980s Athens, telling the story of 3 young, lost hustlers who find each other from different corners of the world. Moving between their days on the streets, and then to modern New York where one of them now teaches as The New School, a powerful story of how friendship, loss, and different types of love can endure over decades.
Perhaps the best part of the novel, however, is Hoffman’s fluid and beautiful writing. The main character is a poet, and it seems like this breathed life into the words on the page. The story is solid, and while this is no page-turner, it still moves swiftly and sprinkles surprises about the plot in the most unexpected places. The characters are well-formed, and I feel like they won’t leave my head for a few days.
I am not familiar with Hoffman’s work, but it definitely seems like I am missing out. "Running" is released in February, and I think will make a huge impression.
Perhaps the best part of the novel, however, is Hoffman’s fluid and beautiful writing. The main character is a poet, and it seems like this breathed life into the words on the page. The story is solid, and while this is no page-turner, it still moves swiftly and sprinkles surprises about the plot in the most unexpected places. The characters are well-formed, and I feel like they won’t leave my head for a few days.
I am not familiar with Hoffman’s work, but it definitely seems like I am missing out. "Running" is released in February, and I think will make a huge impression.
December 26, 2016
This book is dark and haunting. When I requested it in NetGalley I was looking for general fiction, not a thriller or the usual books I read. The blurb seemed interesting enough and I was glad to have been approved quickly. I enjoyed the flashback to Athens in the 80s. A view of what "running" meant in the story. I had a vivid image of what these characters were and I felt transported to the setting.
The storyline is thought provoking and intense. Many questions are unanswered and left for the reader's interpretation. That can be frustrating for many people, I thought it was brilliant and mesmerizing.
I have never read other books by the author, but apparently she took a different path and direction with this one. I'm glad she did, I enjoyed it very much.
Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange of an honest review.
The storyline is thought provoking and intense. Many questions are unanswered and left for the reader's interpretation. That can be frustrating for many people, I thought it was brilliant and mesmerizing.
I have never read other books by the author, but apparently she took a different path and direction with this one. I'm glad she did, I enjoyed it very much.
Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange of an honest review.
May 31, 2017
This is a beautifully complex story. The shifts in time, perspectives, and story only added depth to the novel. Yet, I didn't have trouble understanding time or perspective as I was reading. Once I started, I literally found myself trying to read a few more pages any moment I could sneak them in! This novel was gritty, and a reminder that in the real world there is no such thing as a perfect ending.
*Update*
It's been two months, and I still find myself thinking about this book, and the characters. Anything that has that much of a profound effect on me as a reader that it causes me to stop and think long after the last page has been read is a five star read!
*Update*
It's been two months, and I still find myself thinking about this book, and the characters. Anything that has that much of a profound effect on me as a reader that it causes me to stop and think long after the last page has been read is a five star read!
April 3, 2017
The writing itself is beautiful and the story does pick up at the very end but before that and for most of the book it's so disjointed and fragmented that I could care less about the fates of any of the characters. It's hard to keep track of anything--time periods, what's happening in the world, ages of these characters. It's a mess in that way that makes it a really frustrating read. I wanted to like it so much more than I did.
April 23, 2017
I don't think I have given many books I have finished a 1 star rating. I would not have finished it had it not been short. The book was confusing. It would have been helpful if the chapters said who was talking and when and where it was taking place. It was just all over the place.
I see the reviews are mixed. My advice, if you don't like the book at the beginning, you won't like it at the end. Save yourself some time and do not finish! I wish that is what I had done.
I see the reviews are mixed. My advice, if you don't like the book at the beginning, you won't like it at the end. Save yourself some time and do not finish! I wish that is what I had done.
February 27, 2019
What an interesting book. I can't remember how I came across this very unique novel on Goodreads but I know it has been on my TBR list for a while when I stumbled on it in the airport in New Orleans. I am so glad I bought it, it is not like the books I normally read the plot was quite, but not gentle, harrowing. And don't expect a neat tiding ending I have no idea what will happen to these characters.
April 10, 2018
I hated this book from start to finish. The horrible characters, the all-over-the-place writing style, the plot (or lack thereof) - none of it was redeeming. I only finished it so I could discuss it with my book club. Worst book I have read in a long time.
July 8, 2019
To me this book was half-baked, which can be good like cookie dough sometimes, but to me it went over more like soggy pancake.
It had a lot of potential for me, someone wearing an evil eye bracelet she bought for good luck in Tilos as she types, but I felt more like I was reading character notes than an actual novel: one character has a traumatic childhood in Washington state; two characters wrestle; one writes poems. None of these things feel fully or neatly explored to me.
Rape, pregnancy, and violence also seem to happen just because. These are the kinds of characters who don't care about the consequences of their actions and seem to be horrible people on purpose without any sort of evolution, which works for some readers but not for me.
I'm also fresh from reading intimate novels told from a single perspective, and was not feeling the narrative or timeline switches at all.
I have to hand it to Hoffman on the one-liners though. The commentary on passports and countries as blood spilled over, temples made by slaves, Boyfriend of Navas, etc.
I'm sure there's something lovely and profound in the book I just wasn't in the right headspace or place to get.
It had a lot of potential for me, someone wearing an evil eye bracelet she bought for good luck in Tilos as she types, but I felt more like I was reading character notes than an actual novel: one character has a traumatic childhood in Washington state; two characters wrestle; one writes poems. None of these things feel fully or neatly explored to me.
Rape, pregnancy, and violence also seem to happen just because. These are the kinds of characters who don't care about the consequences of their actions and seem to be horrible people on purpose without any sort of evolution, which works for some readers but not for me.
I'm also fresh from reading intimate novels told from a single perspective, and was not feeling the narrative or timeline switches at all.
I have to hand it to Hoffman on the one-liners though. The commentary on passports and countries as blood spilled over, temples made by slaves, Boyfriend of Navas, etc.
I'm sure there's something lovely and profound in the book I just wasn't in the right headspace or place to get.
April 30, 2018
Intriguing characters. Intriguing place. Intriguing idea.
The book focuses around a trio of disenchanted and prone to violence youth. Bridey, an American, meets up with Milo and Jasper, British couple extraordinaire in Athens. All young, lost and looking. Their trade is Running. I have to admit, I was uneducated on this trade. In return for a room and a few books, a runner hustles tourists into hotels. In our case, an ancient and seedy hotel.
The story is murky as it involves satellite characters, vicious plots and stumbles through the past and present bring more questions then answers. But it's all very intriguing as it's happening. That is until the book ends and I found myself a day late and a dollar short on anything more then a wander through the seedy underbelly of late 1980s Athens.
The book focuses around a trio of disenchanted and prone to violence youth. Bridey, an American, meets up with Milo and Jasper, British couple extraordinaire in Athens. All young, lost and looking. Their trade is Running. I have to admit, I was uneducated on this trade. In return for a room and a few books, a runner hustles tourists into hotels. In our case, an ancient and seedy hotel.
The story is murky as it involves satellite characters, vicious plots and stumbles through the past and present bring more questions then answers. But it's all very intriguing as it's happening. That is until the book ends and I found myself a day late and a dollar short on anything more then a wander through the seedy underbelly of late 1980s Athens.
July 6, 2023
this book was so bad i felt like i was in a hostage situation with it. i don’t want to spend any more time on it than i already have so: this is a bad secret history knockoff. it is so pretentious and i hate that it’s labelled on here as a queer romance considering the mlm couple in question barely interacts and only exists to ogle at or be ogled at by the main (female) character. i should have known better than to trust a book where the protagonist is named “bridey”.
September 23, 2017
3.75 stars
March 5, 2017
Shattering look at class and violence. Prose at times reminiscent of St. Aubyn but with a more complex plot.
June 9, 2023
It's important that anyone setting out to read this book know that in my library copy, on page 39, someone left an orange post-it note that read, "IF YOU HAVEN'T FIGURED IT OUT YET, THIS BOOK REALLY SUCKS AND IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER!"
True, the book doesn't seem to really go anywhere or aim to accomplish anything. True, the characters are laughably silly archetypes of the "genius drunk," glorifying poverty by sleeping in odd places and washing their clothes with a bar of soap (the author really likes to remind us of this at least five times throughout the book). And true, there is a scene wherein the main character arbitrarily rips all of the filters off her pack of cigarettes so she can more authentically smoke the tobacco. (To which I laughed out loud for a long, long time.)
But it's also true that there are a few beautifully written passages, a few relationships that are mildly interesting (the main character's years living with her uncle, for one). However, the author never really wants to linger too long in one place, which also makes the timeline and order of operations in the book muddled and confusing. Half the time I didn't know which of the three characters the narrator was. (That said, at no time was I confused about how bony the twinky tortured love interest Jasper was. I would love to know exactly how many times the word "bones" was referenced near the word "Jasper"...) I'm not sure what actually literally happened in the book other than a bombing and a passport sale that are connected.
If you're interested in the lives of 3 runaways who glorify alcoholism, poverty, and sexualizing pain infliction unto others, please, by all means, crack the spine of this book. However, if you are generally disinterested in sociopaths, I'd skip it. Follow the advice of the earlier post-it writer, and save yourself from at least 50 mentions of characters either vomiting or pissing themselves in the course of 270-some pages.
True, the book doesn't seem to really go anywhere or aim to accomplish anything. True, the characters are laughably silly archetypes of the "genius drunk," glorifying poverty by sleeping in odd places and washing their clothes with a bar of soap (the author really likes to remind us of this at least five times throughout the book). And true, there is a scene wherein the main character arbitrarily rips all of the filters off her pack of cigarettes so she can more authentically smoke the tobacco. (To which I laughed out loud for a long, long time.)
But it's also true that there are a few beautifully written passages, a few relationships that are mildly interesting (the main character's years living with her uncle, for one). However, the author never really wants to linger too long in one place, which also makes the timeline and order of operations in the book muddled and confusing. Half the time I didn't know which of the three characters the narrator was. (That said, at no time was I confused about how bony the twinky tortured love interest Jasper was. I would love to know exactly how many times the word "bones" was referenced near the word "Jasper"...) I'm not sure what actually literally happened in the book other than a bombing and a passport sale that are connected.
If you're interested in the lives of 3 runaways who glorify alcoholism, poverty, and sexualizing pain infliction unto others, please, by all means, crack the spine of this book. However, if you are generally disinterested in sociopaths, I'd skip it. Follow the advice of the earlier post-it writer, and save yourself from at least 50 mentions of characters either vomiting or pissing themselves in the course of 270-some pages.
February 26, 2017
I received an advance copy of Cara Hoffman's new book from NetGalley and was hooked from the first sentence. Running is an AMAZING work of finely crafted literature! If you like a book that challenges the way you think about storytelling and is full of sharply crafted characters and settings - this book is for you! It's full of non-linear time shifts, queer anti-heroes, beautiful prose, subtle disruptions, and existential desolation mixed with intellectual optimism. Read while listening to Nick Cave, then put it on the shelf between Elizabeth Hand and Joan Didion, but not too far from Sartre and Jean Genet.
August 7, 2022
2.5/5
What
What
February 7, 2017
I had no idea that there was such a thing as "running," that hustling tourists into a rundown dive where they confiscate passports and offer no amenities whatsoever could offer one a so-called living. But this is how Eton-educated Jasper, his hulking poet of a boyfriend Milo, and wiry little American orphan Bridey Sullivan earn their scant keep in the bowels of Athens, Greece. The ruinous hotel gives them a room, and they seem to spend all their earnings at the in-house bar, Drinks Time.
I am not a fan of this new literary fad of a device where scenes shifts backwards and forwards in time and point of view under the guise of mystery, also I don't like the romanticizing of substance abuse where people who drink, smoke and do drugs are portrayed as being brilliant and beautiful and sexy in between vomiting and being arrested. So attractive that they impregnate one another even though they're homosexual. Or maybe they just think they do. Also unclear is why Declan Joyce, the brutal IRA soldier who abuses Jasper is included in this group, or why Bridey runs, rapes and ruins Murat Christensen, a Dutch anthropology scholar. And why does she hate families so much? Why does everybody talk so incessantly about literature and gossip but not the truth? Despite all these questions, and lack of a hero I wanted to root for, I have to say I still inhaled this book. The writing is gripping. And I love the cover.
I am not a fan of this new literary fad of a device where scenes shifts backwards and forwards in time and point of view under the guise of mystery, also I don't like the romanticizing of substance abuse where people who drink, smoke and do drugs are portrayed as being brilliant and beautiful and sexy in between vomiting and being arrested. So attractive that they impregnate one another even though they're homosexual. Or maybe they just think they do. Also unclear is why Declan Joyce, the brutal IRA soldier who abuses Jasper is included in this group, or why Bridey runs, rapes and ruins Murat Christensen, a Dutch anthropology scholar. And why does she hate families so much? Why does everybody talk so incessantly about literature and gossip but not the truth? Despite all these questions, and lack of a hero I wanted to root for, I have to say I still inhaled this book. The writing is gripping. And I love the cover.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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