Crooked Little Vein

Hello everyone! I apologize for the lack of posts lately. Somehow that whole being a college senior and looking for a job while working on two theses caught up with me. However, I've managed to actually get some reading in, and thus can finally provide you with some new book suggestions!

I was told to read and review this book by two of my friends. Them being who they are, I began reading with a touch of trepidation. After all, when the back cover boasts a quote from Joss Whedon (if you don’t know who that is, you should) saying, “I think this book ate my soul,” one wonders what they’ve gotten themselves into. I found myself instantly submerged into a gritty, disgusting world where the good guys were relatively repulsive people and the bad guys were simply unspeakable. And that was only in the first chapter!

            Author Warren Ellis’ novel looks like an easy read at first glance, and I will admit, the chapters are easily whipped through, with a large amount of white space on the page and a distinct lack of elevated language or style. However, I still found myself slowing down to process the set of horrid images being laid out before me. The book is at its heart a detective novel, and yet it deals in a world so dark and sexually perverse that it is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. Half of the things the protagonist, Mike McGill, encounters during his search for the secret alternative Constitution of the United States (yup, I did just say that) I hadn’t even heard of before, nor do I really ever want to hear about again. This is not a novel for the easily offended, or the frail constitution. And yet somehow, despite these scenes I’ve alluded to that were so mind numbingly sick, I found myself thoroughly enjoying this book. There is something about McGill’s cynical look on life and darkly humorous take on the way his hunt plays out that is endearing, and downright compelling. As much as I didn’t want to go deeper into the underbelly of American culture, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Once you read the novel you will understand the great irony of that last statement

            Of course, like any great novel there must be a romance, and it is here that Ellis begins to lose steam. McGill tries desperately not to fall for his young assistant Trix, a deviant student writing her thesis on extremes of self-inflicted human experience. The two team up against McGill’s better judgment and soon begin their completely unbelievable affair. There is some build up to the sexual tension between the two characters, which could hardly have been avoided given Trix’s blatant sexuality and disregard for social norms, but the emotional strength between them seems to come out of nowhere. It is an idealized relationship, created to perhaps juxtapose the world of lies, mistrust and corruption that the two find themselves thrown into, but never the less, one that will cause readers like myself to groan a bit and then push onward into the novel, choosing to ignore poor romantic plotting in favor for the vivid character descriptions that are Ellis’s forte.

            I don’t think I’ve come across a novel where the characters were described in such unconventional detail. Ellis has created people who we never encounter in real life, but somehow believe in while reading because they are detailed in such a truthful manner. He is not simply saying the man had blue eyes and blonde hair, but instead concentrates on the eccentricities and subconscious patterns that only a detective would truly pick up on. When the Chief of Staff of the United States describes himself as  having opium lesions on his brain and the closest thing to God that this country will ever see, you know you’re in for an interesting read.

            So I suppose what I’m telling you all is that if you can get over the more unbelievable aspects of the story, and then wade through the veritable pool of filth and vulgarity, you will find yourself compelled to keep reading this novel and fully taken along for the ride.