Howard Norman - Haunting of L

[John Bailey]

First chapter of the Haunting of L is available at:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/books/ch1/1396006

I didn't know of Pynchon's endorsement but I suppose the subject matter of 
Spirit Photography (it seems) would be up his alley, and I the use of 
archaic newspaper-style headlines for chapter titles is nice (although I'm 
not so sure about the overdescription of actual newspapers in the first few 
pages). The style of writing is pretty straightforward...in fact the first 
para is pretty funny in a way:

"In the four-poster bed, my employer's wife, Kala Murie, lying beside me, 
the world seemed in perfect order. It was four o—clock in the morning, March 
13, 1927. I almost drifted off to sleep. But then I felt a jolt of unease. 
This was natural to my character. It occurred to me that hidden deep inside 
my sense of the world in perfect order was the fear that the worst was on 
its way."

I will refrain from commenting at this juncture.

In other news, has anyone read the new novel by Dave Eggers, one of the 
authors who makes that Big Books R Bad hitlist referred to earlier? At the 
same website posted above, it has a chapter posted which begins with the 
ear-pricking-upping words "The light was screaming through the windows, 
intent and wild, and I opened my portal's eyelid a quick few inches and we 
were coming at Africa at 300 mph, the ocean below striking the coast of 
Dakar with desperation."

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