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Loading... Big Machine: A Novel (edition 2009)by Victor LaValle (Author)
Work InformationBig Machine: A Novel by Victor LaValle
  
  ) monicaberger | Jan 22, 2024 |   ) kevinkevbo | Jul 14, 2023 | This novel fits somewhere in the bracket of if Murakami wrote noir or Chandler wrote magical realism. Even though the reader doesn’t really know what’s going on until late into the story it’s still a fascinating read. The narrator of the tale has an interesting turn of phrase and is more than likeable enough. The writer mixes things up quite well, playing with your emotions throughout where one minute you’re on a downer but a few paragraphs later you’re laughing again. There are some big themes examined along the way with race, religion and cults at the forefront but the story is never compromised and even with a slowish start it’s never less than entertaining. ( ) AHS-Wolfy | Apr 11, 2022 | In the end, I didn't care, because it was a damn good novel. I haven't read a lot of LaValle's work, but I'm trying to remedy that, based on the bit that I have read. I enjoy the man's writing, I enjoy his characters, and I especially enjoy the fact that I have no farking clue where he's going to take me. This novel's a bit of a mindfuck, but I mean that in the most complimentary of ways. Really enjoyed it. ( ) TobinElliott | Sep 3, 2021 |  ) kvschnitzer | Dec 8, 2019 |
 In Victor LaValle's spectacular new novel, "Big Machine," race and religion are the subterranean tributaries that threaten to destroy America's underclass, even as they help to sustain it. Along with Junot Diaz, Lev Grossman, Kelly Link and Kevin Brockmeier, LaValle is part of an increasingly high-profile and important cohort of writers who reinvent outmoded literary conventions, particularly the ghettos of genre and ethnicity that long divided serious literature from popular fiction. In that spirit, the epigraph for "Big Machine" is from John Carpenter's remake of "The Thing," and in LaValle's acknowledgments he thanks not just Thomas Paine but also Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson and "my man Ambrose Bierce," all of whom stand as spiritual godparents to this sprawling, fantastical work. The Big Machine is what urban fantasy looks like when it’s grown up and the writer isn’t relying on paranormal clichés to flesh out an epic tale of good versus evil. Not that you can pigeon-hole this novel—it’s a dizzying slipstream mashup of genres and memes and tropes and legends wrapped around a cross-cultural love story. This is a story that has depth, richness; a heart and a soul. Above all, it has a soul.  “Big Machine” wants to be a big novel about big ideas, particularly Christianity and race in America, past and present. If not big in size, the novel does seem long. LaValle lavishes considerable detail on Ricky’s childhood survival of a mini-Jonestown, and Ricky narrates in an often rich vernacular, but way too many pages are devoted to getting people in and out of cars, in and out of clothes, and in and out of tight scrapes — hallmarks of novels that try to be big sellers. AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Ricky Rice is a middling hustler with a lingering junk habit, a bum knee, and a haunted mind. A survivor of a suicide cult, he scrapes by as a porter at a bus depot in Utica, New York, until one day a mysterious letter arrives, summoning him to enlist in a band of paranormal investigators comprised of former addicts and petty criminals, all of whom had at some point in their wasted lives heard what may have been the voice of God. Infused with the wonder of a disquieting dream and laced with Victor LaValle's fiendish comic sensibility, Big Machine is a mind-rattling mystery about doubt, faith, and the monsters we carry within us. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.62)
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Big Machine by Victor LaValle
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