City of Strangers

I'll try to be brief and concise, like Ian Mackenzie is in his incredibly compelling debut. I can barely recall reading a first novel of a contemporary author that stung me so pointedly by force of both its content AND its language. Take for example: "He first considered death when he was eight or nine. His mother had already been dead for several years, but she existed in an atmosphere of the abstract, of he things he took on faith but couldn't see or touch - dinosaurs, his own heart, Russia." Normally I find modern writers who fascinate me with their verbal athletics (Nicholson Baker) OR who compel me purely with their intriguing narrative (Robert Ludlum). Rare is the book or author that writes with such straightforward gusto and delicacy about the whole range of the human condition- sex, love, death, joy, anxiety, religion, fear- while still engaging us in a story that doesn't seem merely a pretext for his own mental masturbation. I'm thrilled to find a young, contemporary author who can dazzle in a modest manner, show his charm and style without banging us over the head with it, and pull the reader along in a classic yarn without making us feel manipulated. I will stop because I feel that I've already gushed too much or written too self-indulgently, which are precisely the qualities that Ian Mackenzie avoids so gracefully. Read the first chapter, and you will be hooked. That's all. (Waiting for the movie now...)