Simon Baker
Shoot Me Now
Lights Out in Wonderland
By DBC Pierre
Faber 314pp £12.99
D B C Pierre’s third novel is narrated by Gabriel Brockwell, a depressed 25-year-old anti-capitalist protester who has decided to kill himself. At the beginning of the novel he checks out of a Priory-like institution (which his father had checked him into) and, after many lengthy moans about the state of modern Britain, embarks on a last odyssey, at the end of which he will do away with himself. He first flies to Tokyo to see a friend, Smuts, who is a chef. When Smuts ends up in jail for poisoning a customer, Gabriel flies to Berlin where, when not gorging on impossible quantities of booze and cocaine (from the effects of which he recovers instantly, like a cartoon character recovering from being blown to pieces), he tries to stage the biggest party in history in the vaults of Tempelhof Airport. The novel then gathers increasing pace as it heads towards a bacchanalian and surreal ending.
How one reacts to Lights Out in Wonderland will depend on how greatly one values character, believable dialogue and plot, all of which are missing here (leaping from one unlikely hedonistic episode to the next does not amount to a plot, just as bashing randomly on a piano
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
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk