Ed King - David Guterson
I have taken the time to read some reviews of this book before writing mine as I had heard it had been given a 'bad sex writing' award so thought I should see what the world thought of it. The bad sex writing is correct but when I was reading that I thought it said more about the characters than bad writing but now that I think about it....The guy at the Guardian hated it but others enjoyed.
Sex is quite important in this book because it is an Oedipal tale. I didn't focus on the tale too much on before I read the book and did my usual gasp at various points...not a sexual gasp I might add, just a dawning. The joys of not reading blurbs and reviews before I read a book.
The writing is quality writing; a style of omnipotent fact telling I really like. It moved around a bit from Seattle 1962 to the future with each character getting spotlight chapter in equal measures. Walter is our first protagonist and he has a lot of sex with the au pair, Diane, and she gets pregnant. Ed King is their child. That is all I will tell you about the plot, I am not a spoiler. However, what I did enjoy (something I always find appealing) is the cleverness of the lead female character. Conniving, ruthless, driven and so kick arse confident. The 'search' motif through the book is appealing to me also being a librarian, finding stuff is what we do well so Ed's search software and his need to know everything was cool, although it was his undoing. Can you ever know too much and is truth the ultimate?
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