Waiting for the End of the World

A brief look at the list of writers that have sharpened their pencils at the Iowa Writers' Workshop shows how outstanding the talent is that goes through this institution. Writers as diverse and eloquent as Raymond Carver, John Irving, T.C. Boyle and Pinckney Benedict have learnt the tricks of the trade at the Ur-workshop of all creative writing schemes. Madison Smartt Bell has taught there. Waiting For The End Of The World, his second novel, is a whole lot better plotted and constructed than his already quite promising debut Washington Square Ensemble, delivered at the tender age of 26. Set in the valleys of Manhattan and Brooklyn, Waiting For The End Of The World is a modern day tale, a dark and doomy epic of Russian proportions. No other book - of the nine novels and two short story collections - that Bell has written to date has even been close to the boiling dark atmospheres, layered and set into deeper and even deeper, unknown systems and tunnels of the ultimate urban landscape that is New York City. Nothing compares to this helter skelter with its seemingly random anecdotes, a definitive plot, and tales of utter lunacy. As ludicrous as it will sound, Waiting For The End Of The World is a classic on a par with Dostoevsky's works (which did indeed serve as some serious inspiration)