The Book of Dave

Product Information

When cabdriver Dave Rudman's wife of five years deserts him for another man, taking their only child with her, he is thrown into a tailspin of doubt and discontent.

Since then it has sat there, like a guilty secret, a book by one of my favourite authors – unfinished. Her novel, The Liquid Land (2019, sold to Italy (Rizzoli), France (Éditions Globe), Australia/New Zealand/UK (Scribe)) was shortlisted for the German Book Prize and the Austrian Book Prize. It's dense, difficult, funny, and like Burgess' Clockwork Orange, needs a dictionary in the back for the words from Symun's world. I may pick it up at another time, but I've got so much on my to-read list already, it might be relagated to a dusty shelf somewhere.It was not a smooth process, and some catastrophic ice sheet collapses will have triggered local tsunami that When she’s not writing she is usually reading, dreaming about living on a boat or eating Jaffa Cakes. Is it worth risking your sovereignty in this society to speak up against doctrines that offend your soul? The prose in this book is astonishing, and even thought that can sometimes make it not the easiest read, you don’t want to stop reading nonetheless.

If this isn't going to be confusing enough, both stories are written with a phonetic approach to dialogue. The past story charts Dave’s life and breakdown as he tries to reconnect with his son; the future story follows Carl, a child of the remote community of Ham, as he tries to navigate the inquisitorial perils of the Church of Dave in pursuit of the truth about what happened to his father.It had some plucky parts and made me chuckle a few times, mainly with outlandish dialogue, however evaluating the book as a whole left me with very little passion one way or another. Another challenging read (some of the future-speak gets a little rough), but certainly worth the time it takes. He made a series of visits to China to learn from him and had the honour of being his final apprentice.