Review: The Low Road by Chris Womersley

Title: The Low Road

Author: Chris Womersley

Publisher: Scribe [2007]

ISBN: 978-1-921215-47-6

Technically this isn’t really a review because I didn’t finish the book. In the portion that I read a disgraced junkie doctor (Wild) and a crook with an untreated bullet wound (Lee) are thrown together by circumstances at a seedy motel on the outskirts of town. They head off on the kind of road trip you’d take if you were unlucky enough to live in Hell, ostensibly to find a surgeon who can deal with Lee’s injury. Another crook (Josef) is angry with the Lee and he follows them. Things go downhill from there. 

After I’d read the first 20-odd pages I put the book down and found dozens of ways to avoid picking it up again. I did that same thing three or four more times over the next couple of weeks. But, as I had voted for this book to be the subject of discussion at an online book club and because it’s by an Australian author, I felt obliged to give it another go. I got as far as page 74 before deciding I couldn’t spend my time in the company of these people anymore.

One of the things I love most about reading is that it often provokes strong reactions. I laugh, I cry, I join social justice campaigns, I pull bedclothes over my head in fear. Or, on occasions like this, I feel every crevice of my being becoming full of overwhelming despair. I vowed after finishing Luke Davies’ Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction that I wouldn’t read a book of unending bleakness again, so feeling that despair fill me up like wet cement fills a foundation ditch, I assigned The Low Road to the DNF pile.

I can appreciate the writing. Womersley has a capacity for creating striking and long-lasting images with deceptively simple phrases that I am deeply envious of. It’s the subject matter sucked out my soul. I’ll demonstrate if I may. Josef has broken into Lee’s apartment and before leaving he pisses all over Luke’s bed (don’t ask). Womersley writes

He was unsure to do what to do when he had finally finished. He zipped himself up and waited while the rust -coloured puddle melted into the sheets and mattress. It didn’t give him nearly as much satisfaction as he had hoped, but perhaps he had expected too much.

 That is exceptional imagery. But it makes me want to curl into the foetal position and weep. 

Before I finish I’m going to have a whinge about the book’s eschewing of quotation marks to indicate dialogue. Is there a point? Is it supposed to be edgy? Modern? Was there a memo I missed? The book has commas, apostrophes and all the other punctuation you’d expect to see in English prose so I fail to see what purpose removing the humble quotation mark served but I found the failure to distinguish dialogue from everything else bloody annoying. 

My rating 0/5 (DNF)

Other stuff 

My view on this book is a minority one. Most people, including those who judge the Ned Kelly Awards, think it’s a great book. Which shows what I know. Here are links to a few of the many reviews that speak far more glowingly of the book than I do.

Reviewed by Damien at Crime Down Under

Reviewed by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise

Reviewed by Sunnie on Aust Crime Fiction

 

To finish or not to finish

It’s a curly question for avid readers. For years I slogged my way through every book I started regardless of my enjoyment level. It was thanks, mostly, to my favourite high school English teacher who said that’s the way good people read. She was right about a lot of things so I persevered. But last year I stopped finishing books I wasn’t enjoying. And I’ve never felt better about my reading.

It’s been roughly a year and I’ve stopped reading 15 books before the end (out of a total of 83 books started during that time). Not only do I enjoy my reading more, because I stop reading when I’m not enjoying, but I’ve been far more adventurous with the authors and genres I’ve tried.  It no longer matters if I try something and don’t like it: I don’t have to finish it. I’ve found loads of great books I probably wouldn’t have tried in the old days.

Also, and quite perversely, knowing I can quit has, on a couple of occasions, been enough to get me through a rough spot and go on to finish a book and really enjoy it. I read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo earlier this year the first few pages completely failed to gab my attention. Knowing I could stop whenever I liked made me quite relaxed and willing to read a few more pages (at around page 40 or so I was hooked). In the old days I’d have been gritting my teeth and avoiding the book all together because I didn’t want to face reading 480 pages of something I wasn’t enjoying. Of course I’ve always, or at least since I left Mrs Mac’s class, been able to stop reading whenever I liked but I never believed that and never did it until I made a conscious decision to read for pure pleasure. 

Generally, once I’ve decided not to finish a book I don’t go back to it. I take it back to the library, add it to my bookmooch inventory or give it away. This week though I’ve decided not to finish Batya Gur’s Literary Murder: A Critical Case but, for reasons I can’t quite put into words, I’m keeping the book and will try it again in a year or three. Perhaps it’s because I really, really wanted to like this book (it’s set in Israel which is just about my favourite place on earth that’s not my home) but whatever the reason I’m happy with this decision too.

So while I’m grateful to Mrs Mac for the wonderful things she taught me I’ve decided that not finishing a book doesn’t make me a bad person, just a happy reader.