I read this novel in one great big semi-hallucinatory gulp. What a ride!
I can’t encapsulate the story better than the description has, so I won’t try. Instead I’ll focus on what was so interesting about this work.
This follows a man who not only seeks an escape route but who finds it. The drudgery of the workaday world, the annoyances of coworkers, and the feeling that there must be something more are going to be familiar to a lot of people in many different professions. It really doesn’t matter if the character is an engineer or a fast-food worker…the point is that he’s wondering if this is all there is to life.
Then answer, as he discovers, is no. Through spiritual quests and moments of complete awareness, his consciousness launches into that eternal now that provides so much enlightenment. At many points in the novel, I had to wonder if this really was a novel. The scenes he describes while he’s visiting that celestial dimension are so vivid that I felt surely they must be based on the author’s real experiences.
This is not a simple read, despite the fact that I jammed through it in a day. It will challenge readers who aren’t prepared to follow the character into that other realm of light and enlightenment. I call the experience semi-hallucinatory for a reason…and that is clearly one of the reasons to read this book. If you’ve quested before or are interested in what it’s like to have these powerful experiences, read this book. The author takes you there…and yet at the end, he deposits you safely back in your seat.
5 stars!
Interested in fiction that delves into the metaphysical? Try Message Stick, winner of two national awards, and He Drinks Poison, short-listed for several national prizes.