Sunday, July 13, 2014

This Book Will Change Your Life - Deep Ellum by the Brandon Hobson.

If LeBron James has proven anything this week, it's that you can go home again, even when home has proven to be riven by heartbreak, violence, vitriol, and a sense of filial betrayal worthy of Greek myth. The protagonist in Deep Ellum, the beautiful, nearly poetic, and speedy, both in read and timbre, novel by the Brandon Hobson may not be all-universe, much less all anything. If anything, he is all nothing, no plans, nor center. But he is drawn to home, and once home, he is easily ensared in all of the grime that is his family, and the twisty relationships contained therein. We rarely write about our desire not to spoil anything, and in this case we're not sure which parts would spoil what. It's clear from jump that this is home as fucked-up childhood, damaged siblings, and distant parents. And yet somehow the mood is such throughout the story's dream scape, that we prefer to invite you to jump into its cracked swirls and crusty creases, to saying anything more about said dream scape, beyond this: you can go home again, and so the question is not how is it possible to do so, but should it be so, and even then, knowing what awaits, why do we want it regardless? Some of that is origin, and as LeBron has shown us, we are inevitably drawn from where we sprang forth. But a lot of it, and LeBron knows this as well, is that we can never let go of family. We can avoid it, runf from it, and try to stomp it to death, but we are always of it and connected to it, and this Hobson captures as well as anyone we've recently read who has attempted to do so. So do hit it, and do lose yourself in it, for it will surely change your life as it has ours, if only for a little while at that.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

so very true to heart