Reviews

• Good enough to invest your time.

• I couldn’t put it down it was so good. I read it over two days as it is quite dense but so exciting and interesting. A very different book , an imaginative original concept. The characters were very well written and so interesting.

• Zum Ende hin wurde das Buch für mich etwas abstrakt. Ich lese fast nie Science Fiction, weil ich mich nur in Bücher hinein versetzen kann, welche in der irdischen Realität spielen. Nichtsdestotrotz habe ich es verschlungen und habe mich auf den letzten Seiten von nichts und niemanden stören lassen. Das nächste Buch von Bennet steht schon auf meinem Regal :)

• Ok, I realized just now that in another recent review I said I reserve 5 stars for “life changing” novels but I think that’s not true. I wish there was a sixth star for those...but then I’d just have the same problem with more increments. A novel can be great to read, awesome, just what you need, and still not be counted I guess as Great Literature? Although lots of what gets counted as Great Literature is boring, unreadable, and never rewards you for wading through it. (I’m looking at you, Dom DeLillo and David Foster Wallace.) So I’m giving this one five stars, cos I am officially giving up on trying to rate books in the context of other books, and I’m going to rate them entirely on the merits I perceive in them once I’ve just read them. (I’m not sure what grand Purpose I’ve thought my reviews serve, all these 20 some years, now I think about it, but that’s for sure too existential a question here.) So, American Elsewhere! Yay! Best story about (a big) family ever. (Not sure if you’re not from a big family, whether it will translate. Maybe not at all for onlies?) Impossible to put down. Ingenious. Original. Well drawn characters, including the non human ones! Super different than other novels in its genre (if it actually has a genre, which I don’t think it does.) The environment and setting are so well written, I could even picture the whole thing though I’ve only been to the Southwest one time for three days total. An entire universe is created here and it’s just a great story, unwound carefully and deliberately, masterfully. Five stars for sure. I’ll deal with my ridiculous English major assumptions about literature, canon, and genre some other time; from here out, the only criteria for five stars will be “would I highly recommend this to a friend and in fact actively pressure them to read it?” I will be pressuring my spouse to read this soon. (PS: I’m coming to believe perhaps all books are either 4 to 5 stars, or 0 to 1 stars. Except those desperate seeming, unevenly-compiled anthologies; those have to be rated on ratio of crap to gold and usually get a 3.)

• Bought this one to take on holiday. Thought I would enjoy it from the other customer reviews I had read, but it exceeded my expectations. Horror fiction has definitely improved in recent years, with Glen Duncan, Justin Cronin, Joe Hill, the Swedish chap and a few others taking forward the Stephen King/Peter Straub high concept approach to writing, with strong characterisation, humour and relevance to modern life. Robert Jackson Bennett is up there with the best, and American Elsewhere is as good as vintage King, Straub et al. I have bought some of the authors earlier books, but not got round to reading them as yet, thinking I would start with this one, mainly because the plot outline really appealed. Without giving too much away, there is a strong H.P. Lovecraft/Old Gods slant (much more than one reviewer suggested), combined with a 50's BEM/Paranoia feel which is really well done. The main characters-Mona Bright, the town Elders and the Gangsters from the Roadhouse are all memorable and believable, and the book zips along even though it is over 600 pages long. I really don't want to give the game away, so won't say anything more about the story, but it has science, humour, action, horror in liberal doses throughout. Looking forward to reading the rest of Robert Jackson Bennet's published works and seeing what he come up with next. Excellent stuff.

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