The Black Brook

Read The Black Brook. Drury is funny and poignant. The people are a little off the beaten track but that's what makes this a book to be read.

This book is somewhat shapeless, strewing red herrings as it wanders. The author definitely gives the impression of a writer who sits down at his desk each day with no firm direction. However, if you are a reader for whom the destination is less important than the journey, there is much here to interest you. The protagonist seems to be searching for something to cure his malaise, and this quest takes him from Belgium to small town New England to Scotland, well-wrought descriptively. Just don't expect a point to it all.

I don't think it ruins anything to mention that the title comes from a painting of a girl's thoughts. How does Tom Drury think about so much and with such wit? As an experiment before writing this review I flipped the book open randomly at several points. Just as I thought, there was a wonderful surprise to be savored on every page. There are descriptions, scenes and sentences I wanted to bring home and turn into house pets. The fact that he manages to weave a plot around all this delicious satirical writing is amazing. I can't wait for his next book since I've read all three now.

A fine stylist who has ALMOST found his voice...a good storyteller, but sometimes too much in love with his own well-chosen words. Sometimes reads like Don DeLillo lite. Still, you won't regret reading this fine book.

I kept thinking that this is the kind of novel Paul Auster would write if Auster wrote more mainstream books. (It especially reminded me of Leviathan, due maybe to locale.)Though he depends less on coincidence than Auster does, Drury is still pretty far from the mainstream with this slow but beautifully written "mystery." That is, it seems like it should be a mystery, but it doesn't read as if there's any rush to find out what's at the bottom of the odd circumstances surrounding Paul Emmons, formerly Paul Nash, who is in the witness protection program for ratting on the mob. It's more of a character study. Category-defying. The prose is sharp and fresh.