Mondo Bungle

We Are Here, by Michael Marshall, 2012
400 pages

This was intriguing, surely. Described as chilling and unsettling and all the other things that good books often are. It's a mystery that veers into slight fantasy territory, but it remains urban and humane. It's one of those mind-bending types.

It starts off with something we already learn by reading the back, but that's ight. We have a newly published author in a strange subway encounter with a person he (supposedly) doesn't know who says "remember me".

Then we skew off into a new narrative, another couple up in New York who both work late at the same bar, gets involved with finding out who is stalking a friend of theirs.

It's so spoilable, it seems a lot of my choices have been, but we end up spiraling into parallel worlds that may not be so parallel as they seem at first, inhabited by beings born of loss and regret and loneliness. They can't be seen, at least not easily, and band together and cause some kinda existential ruckus.

Reading it is fun most definitely. It's intensely gripping and suspenseful and even emotionally touching at times, going into all the great themes. The fantasy elements are ultimately heavily subdued, which gives it the air that everything is quite real... and maybe it is. It's wonderfully written and the humor is nothing less than my exact type. Highly enjoyable.

9/10

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