Take a photo of a barcode or cover
dlaboy 's review for:
Blood Test: A Comedy
by Charles Baxter
Suppose you have been told you have a license to kill. Would you do it? Our media landscape suggests the average American would, and Brock is as average as it gets. He is the proverbial frog in the pot, nudged toward the romanticized catharsis of murder by corporate scams and his family’s social woes. Then it gets unexpectedly wholesome. Just as the pot reaches a boil, there is no catharsis, and our morbid attraction towards violence is reflected back at us as if Baxter himself is breaking the fourth wall saying “Look at yourself. You should be ashamed. Don’t you know forgiveness is a superpower?”
Blood Test has a comedic veneer of a satire, both in Baxter’s style (reminiscent of George Saunders) and the ridiculous shenanigans Brock winds up in. The characters were too flat and the ending was too on the nose for it to rise to the level of poignant.
“The market for murder is an expanding field where the sun shines every day.”
Blood Test has a comedic veneer of a satire, both in Baxter’s style (reminiscent of George Saunders) and the ridiculous shenanigans Brock winds up in. The characters were too flat and the ending was too on the nose for it to rise to the level of poignant.
“The market for murder is an expanding field where the sun shines every day.”