From the TBR Pile: Blog Tour: Disintegration by Richard Thomas

Author: Richard Thomas
Publisher: Alibi
Date of publication: June 2015

Once a suburban husband and father, now the man has lost all sense of time. He retains only a few keepsakes of his former life: a handmade dining room table, an armoire and dresser from the bedroom, and a tape of the last message his wife ever left on their answering machine. These are memories of a man who no longer exists. Booze and an affair with a beautiful woman provide little relief, with the only meaning left in his life comes from his assignments. An envelope slipped under the door of his apartment with the name and address of an unpunished evildoer. The unspoken directive to kill. And every time he does, he marks the occasion with a memento: a tattoo. He has a lot of tattoos.

But into this unchanging existence seep unsettling questions. How much of what he feels and sees can he trust? How much is a lie designed to control him? He will risk his own life—and the lives of everyone around him—to find out.

Disintegration is a good word for this book. The story quickly breaks down into a very confusing mess. I thought the synopsis looked intriguing so I went for it. I'm not so sure I can say I am glad that I did. The narrator of the book is unnamed. He lost his family at some point and is now a drunk hit-man hired by some unknown guy. His sense of time is gone and he can only mark it by his kill tattoos.

I'm not totally sure what the purpose of this story was. I had a hard time following it. While I do like my stories abstract at times, I don't like to constantly be in a state of confusion. The book just made for an uncomfortable read because I never really knew what was going on half the time. The story basically is told to us through his alcohol clouded mind so there is really no sense of time or reality. The ending is also depressing and made me wonder at all of the 5 star reviews.

This definitely wasn't a book for me. Maybe you'll have better luck with it.

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About Richard Thomas

Richard Thomas is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications. Nominated for five Pushcart Prizes, he is the author of the novel Transubstantiate and two short-story collections, Herniated Roots and Staring into the Abyss. Thomas lives with his family in the Chicago area.

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