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A review by pierceinverarity
Big Machine by Victor LaValle
5.0
"Big Machine" tops my list of the best books I've read in many months.
Lavalle's work brings to mind "The Intuitionsit," if only based on the fact that he is a young African-American novelist whose crafted a genre-bending work with a most compelling and likable narrator.
Ricky Rice is a smart, funny, ne'er-do-well with a little heroin problem. His plot is launched when he is summoned from his job cleaning bus station restrooms in upstate NY. Ricky travels to the Burnham Library, outside of Burlington VT, to become a member of the "Unlikely Scholars" -- a group of small-time junkies and thieves who have been enlisted in a nebulous campaign to ... well, um, just read the book.
Lavalle's work brings to mind "The Intuitionsit," if only based on the fact that he is a young African-American novelist whose crafted a genre-bending work with a most compelling and likable narrator.
Ricky Rice is a smart, funny, ne'er-do-well with a little heroin problem. His plot is launched when he is summoned from his job cleaning bus station restrooms in upstate NY. Ricky travels to the Burnham Library, outside of Burlington VT, to become a member of the "Unlikely Scholars" -- a group of small-time junkies and thieves who have been enlisted in a nebulous campaign to ... well, um, just read the book.