A Game to Play on the Tracks

‘The novel follows a series of characters, including Arden, an intellectual singer stuck in the West Coast bar scene whose tale ends with inevitable tragedy; her husband, Nichol, who drifts through a series of disastrous love affairs; and their son, Roy, who meanders through a series of meaningless experiences. The plot is loose at best, as the narrative drifts in and out of the characters’ lives, following emotional notes more than story lines. The episodes are layered with subtext, and there are entire life histories contained in asides. This isn’t the usual Can Lit multi-generational saga of domestic affairs and quiet insights.‘ ’ A Game to Play on the Tracks is as brutally violent as it is introspective, as critical of the domestic life and its enforced passivity as it is of bar louts who want nothing more than endless reruns of AC/DC hits. Rather than writing the literary equivalent of a pop song with artificial and meaningless romances, Jackson has instead embraced the emotion of an improv jazz session, and crafted a tale of beautiful chaos.