A review by lezreadalot
This Town Sleeps by Dennis E. Staples

3.0

“Spirits can be bitches like that.”

3.5 stars. A beautifully written if sometimes confusingly written piece. I went into this thinking that it would be a mystery, and I guess by some stretch of the imagination and definition you could still call it that? In reality it sits somewhere between literary fiction and magical realism, and follows a young Ojibwe man looking into a murder that happened when he was a child, while he navigates a relationship with a deeply closeted former classmate of his. There are secrets, revelations, and a strange ghost dog. Marion's journey is a really interesting one, and I loved the deep dives into sexuality and culture and family lineage. His dynamic with Shannon is a painful and familiar one, and the writing really shines.

I didn't love all the stylistic decisions and POV decisions. But at the same time, I don't know how else it could have been written. For the most part we're in Marion's first person POV, and sometimes we get glimpses of Shannon's POV, in a searing second person, which was so interesting, and I loved it. But the nature of the story also necessitates us getting chapters and perspectives from a lot of side characters, people in Marion's past, people connected to this mystery, and after a while all of the different POVs made the book feel really cluttered and stifling. Again, I'm not sure how else the author would have achieved what he set out to do, but every time we would veer off into these different directions, I felt like the book lost a lot of its traction. But take that with a grain of salt; maybe this style would work better for others. I did sort of like how this allowed the author to reveal certain things to the reader, independently of Marion, but I have to admit I got lost a couple times.

Listened to the audiobook as read by Kaipo Schwab, and found it really enjoyable, if not the most polished when it came to dialogue and stuff. I liked the paths this took, and it ended in a really apt way. A fascinating, one-of-a-kind read.