Sometimes it can feel like a tale of two works, the junction not quite seamless, with some of the poetry here feeling a bit more academic and opaque next to the thrilling prose. But on the whole, this is another stunningly audacious work from Lerner that surveys life through the lens of art and vice versa, intimate and universal, challenging but deeply rewarding.
A bold formal statement that’s both a continuation of Porter’s thematic interests and an artistic expansion; if it doesn’t quite rise to the level of his previous work, fans of the author and adventurous readers alike should still find plenty to chew on.
Taylor again proves himself to be a master of creating recognizable, fallible humans, but the novel’s unvaried tonal character becomes wearisome and smothers too many of its virtues of canny observation.
Thrillingly bold, this collection is at once unique in approach, mischievous in its navigation of ideas, and lush yet controlled in its use of language, rupturing the division between the domestic and the primal to both delicate and brutal ends.
A playful, incisive, and deeply human novel of cultural and personal disconnect that should appeal to fans of Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station and Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts.
The Passenger is proof that McCarthy still has plenty in the tank, and if it doesn’t quite rise to the heights of his finest work, it’s certainly his strangest. It’s a thrill to find the author still making such beguiling moves.