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1.0

I read somewhere that when Lynch decided to make the prequel to Twin Peaks, Fire Walk with Me, he pursued a singular vision, one that he wasn't able to fully execute in the television show. He did this at the expense of axing his fellow collaborator and writing partner, Mark Frost, which apparently created a rift between them that lasted for many years. This book feels to me like the script to the movie Frost would have made. Whereas Lynch widened the mystery in FWW while not answering any major hanging threads from the then defunct series, Frost wanted to move the story forward while filling in the blanks. It's somewhat ironic then when Frost starts his book way way back, with the journals of Lewis and Clark in 1805.

The book is organized to imitate a case file, with excerpts from journals, newspapers, old photographs, and the like. There is a narrator, labeled The Archivist, who summarizes "chapters," and appears to inflect his or her own personal experiences throughout. The second narrator, conveniently labeled "TP," makes notes in the columns of the text. These are brief notes that remind the reader of prior details, verify information, and include the occasional non sequitur such as, "Hold on, I need to get more coffee." The case file builds from describing the mythology of the Nez Perce, to a brief history of the Illuminati, and then spends the bulk of its weight in and around the mysteries of space, aliens, UFOs, and cover ups.

When we do get around to Twin Peaks Frost provides the backstory on the Packards, Martells, Hornes, Jenningses, and Hurleys. This was probably the most enjoyable part of the book for me but at 20 pages sandwiched between UFOs, politics, and secret societies it couldn't save the story. The book ends with many of Twin Peaks' mysteries "explained," but I have to say I prefer Lynch's version where things remain unexplained and make sense "only with the heart." Oh! But the one detail left to solve at this point is who are those two pesky narrators? Well, hints about their identities are presented pretty heavy handedly throughout the text so by the time you get here it's a bit anticlimactic.

And that's that!

For the big Twin Peaks fans out there I have a question. Do you think this book is meant to be part of the canon? If so there are a lot of smaller details that were pretty careless. For example Frost provides a different narrative on how Nadine loses her eye, sets the Fat Trout Trailer Park in a different state, and includes an excerpt from one of Deputy Hawk's journals that is waaaaay out of character. Then there are several other sloppy mistakes. There are stupid jokes including one where a well-seasoned pilot has never heard of Sirius, the dog star. A whole plot line is introduced where a secret meeting is planned and then the person who set it up never shows. Frost allowed a detailed description of someone flying from Tacoma to Seattle and back again when those towns are 30 miles apart. Also, and I don't know if this was done on purpose for authenticity, but many of the newspaper articles, FBI reports, and other "documents" included in the book are horribly written. This is an excerpt from p. 89 "The distances mentioned by XXXX in his report are within a short distance of the actual distances ..." Also on this page "...voluminous volumes.." also appears.

I was going to give TSHOTP at 2 but then I looked and the definition of a 2 is "it was ok," Nope!