Anna James
Demolition Job
The Road to Vermillion Lake
By Vic Cavalli
Harvard Square Editions 244pp $22.95 order from our bookshop
The Road to Vermilion Lake careens from the tedious to the absurd en route to a finale where an orgasm causes a geological fissure, forcing the couple responsible to move to a Hawaiian island. It aims to be a postmodern fever dream exploring the human condition, but it turns into a masturbatory fantasy where nothing is said that could not be expressed with 50 per cent fewer adjectives.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Reading Taylor’s book has also made me join a book club. I did not like the January book; I did enjoy drinking gin while saying why.'
@clamorousvoice explores the history of women readers.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-readers
'When the language starts functioning as a character in fiction, when it is there drawing attention to itself ... It’s not anything that anybody really takes seriously.'
Our interview with Anthony Burgess from 1983.
http://ow.ly/5u0y50yrjoO
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe