Reviews

The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee

jerkyf's review against another edition

I'm not sure how to rate this. It was interesting and depressing. I didn't see the dark humor, just the dark. It's very well written.

lonesomereader's review

5.0

I’ve always suffered from an irrational fear that one day I’ll wake up and the people I love most won’t recognize me. Something like this happens to the protagonist of Tom Lee’s debut novel “The Alarming Palsy of James Orr”. He wakes up one day to find he’s suffering from Bell’s palsy which causes a paralysis to the muscles on one side of his face. This is a bizarre condition which isn’t entirely understood and there isn’t a clear medical treatment to guarantee a recovery. So James is left in a limbo state where he stays home from work and can only hope that his face will recover. Unsurprisingly, this condition makes him self-conscious and it makes people react to him differently. These social issues prompt a deeper contemplation about the meaning of identity, but Tom Lee explores this obliquely through his tale of James’ increasing sense of alienation and the steady disintegration of his “normal” life.

Read my full review of The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee on LonesomeReader