PClem Reviews What the Shadow Told Me

Patrick’s review of What the Shadow Told Me, the new novel by the curiously two-headed Kurtis Davidson — who incidentally is appearing in the next issue of Backwards City Review *and* is reading at The Green Bean this Wednesday at 7 pm — ran in the N&R this week. It’s not online, but here’s a taste:

Team KD exhibits the wild creativity of Thomas Pynchon (I thought of “Vineland” quite often) in the made-up song lyrics, plays on pop culture, and intricate plot connections of every character. I found it required less head scratching than Pynchon, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Instead of post-modern dilemmas, the satire in this novel is self-directed. Writers, literary agents, creative writing teachers, university administrators, and editors are spared no mercy in the attack.

When [literary editor] Malcolm Day is asked what he thinks of Alice Walker’s writing, he says, “The Color Purple is one of my favorite films. Oprah shines in her cinematic debut.”

Kurtis Davidson gets away with pushing humor to the limit. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from the nonsensical pidgin English translation from the Tamil translation of the original English. A gangster rapper releases an album of pornographically reworked Christmas carols that end up being freebies to toddlers at a cancelled Black Santa appearance. Luke Perry, Dom Deloise, Olga Korbut and Strom Thurmond are among the dozens of celebrities name checked.

See you this Wednesday.