The second thing that irked was the ‘about the author’ bit, where we learn that Blackstone has a BA from one American Uni and an MA from the other. I’m not into that, maybe it’s because I never stayed on at school, but even if I did have an English degree I wouldn’t stick it in the front of my book. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ it screams, ‘persevere with this, I’m trained in it.’

Anyhum, about the novel. It’s the story of Hunter Flanagan: early twenties, college student, unpublished writer. He’s dating various girls he meets through a dating website – names aren’t important, they all blend into each other, one even shares her name with one of Hunter’s exes. Oh, and Hunter is worrying; he’s worrying about getting a teaching post at C-, he’s worrying about dating the various girls, and he’s worried about his writing, and he’s worried about how he comes across in e-mails, about whether someone really likes him, about whether he appears a little desperate and over-keen, whether . . .

He worries a lot, mainly because he thinks too much, and although the book is in the third person it’s all Hunter, with his thoughts running into the prose (postmodern, that) and the book – in a nicely perverse way, what with all the dating and everything – coming over like Franz Kafka guest starring in Friends.

Hunter, as a character, rings completely true. How close he is to Blackstone himself would be nice to know, since Hunter’s novel isn’t a million miles away from The Week You Weren’t Here’ itself. Hunter’s a guy who lives in his head, who’s read way too much, thought way too much, and as a result is almost incapable of acting on impulse, surrendering to the moment, grabbing anything with one hand, even. When, towards the end, he manages to do so for the duration of a few snogs, the next chapter finds him drowning in thought-waves once more:

"He always used to think that if something happened with a girl he couldn’t be certain whether it was just a fluke or not without seeing what the next interaction would be like. Maybe after a really promising first moment something would go wrong and she would change her mind decide not to proceed instead choose a different course the course of not having Hunter."

It all reminds me another piece of post-modernism, ‘The Depressed Person’ by the aforementioned Foster Wallace. Now Blackstone isn’t as show-offy as Foster-Wallace – he won’t spout a dictionary in a single paragraph – but his writing hits a lot of the same notes. ‘The Depressed Person’ told the tale of someone suffering from psychotic depression, trying to describe their condition, and their incessant thoughts, writhing, twisting, turning back on themselves, until by the end the depressed person has tried to quantify and explain for at least twenty-odd pages; all with no end product, all for nothing. They end up where they started, psychotically depressed.

Blackstone’s is a slightly less extreme version. He’s showing us a guy who questions, plans, debates everything. He does it brilliantly, gets it to a tee, but, in the end, you’re wondering what it achieves. You can’t say you really liked or enjoyed ‘The Week You Weren’t Here.’ You admired it, you thought it rang true, but it annoyed you, and that seemed to be the point. Just like Foster Wallace’s story, ‘The Week You Weren’t Here’ made me want to burn my books, take up alcoholism or smack, wake up in my own puke every day, watch ‘Only Fools And Horses,’ and communicate in grunts and farts for the rest of my life. Anything not to think. It even appeals to Hunter Flanagan during one of the numerous end-of-chapter reflections:

"Being intelligent wasn’t so great after all. Maybe this was an argument against grad school. Miriam basically protected herself from life by being an idiot being too dumb to really have to deal with anything substantial to experience real emotions to understand monumental disappointment to feel things of a profound nature."

Reading that, you’ll think Hunter arrogant, and he is, at times. At other times he’s humble, he’s full of self-loathing. Almost all of the time he’s totally self-aware. But, deep down, Hunter’s just looking for love, and he’s a nice guy, all vulnerable and everything. Towards the end his humanity comes to the fore, and Blackstone handles the later, more touching scenes, well, with no sentimentality - once again it’s totally honest, but I’d like to see Blackstone try another, less personal book. He can do the good stuff, now he should spread it over a few different characters, and maybe sprinkle on some plot as well.

Anyway, coming to the end of this messy fucked-up review, I’ll admit I struggled with this book, I had to wade through it, five weeks it took me, and a big part of that is due to my similarity to the main character. I suffer the same problem as Hunter and, once I’d had the ‘that’s me!’ revelation, I realised that it’s bad enough being swamped by my own ponderings without getting seconds.

If you’re a get-up-and-go type, not much of a thinker, just back from a bungee jump, then read this for a bit of escapism. Now I’m away to self-medicate with a dose of ‘Bravo Two Zero’ . . . out of the library, of course.

Iain Bahlaj lives in Fife, Scotland. His short stories have appeared in Front & Centre, Fife Fringe, Chapman, Pulp.net and The Macallan Shorts 3 and 5. His novel, 'Tilt' was published in 2003 (Pulp Books, London). The short story 'Sugar' is a prequel to 'Tilt.' Iain currently works as a night-shift shelf-stacker, while working on a novel about vampires, in this spare time. To visit Iain's Showcase on this website, click here

© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.