Deja Vu

Fiction. Alden Homer and Blake Whitman are traveling their own paths, which seem to cross more frequently than usual for two dissimilar guys on the road in Asia. Their thoughts and experiences are pieces of a puzzle that one can assemble, as this work allows the reader to participate in the construction of the narrative. A rare book that combines modernist formal experimentation with excellent post-modernist content and prose; this novel is as much about form as it is about plot. Part bildungsroman part travelogue, both funny and serious, a blend of facts, fictions, and dreams; DEJA VU risks comparison with novels like Cortazar’s Hopscotch and Perec’s Life: a User’s Manual, and I think it stands up very well. Saying that I actually preferred this to either of them would sound pretentious; but the content of this novel is more to my liking than that of the others –R. Russo.