Review: Land of the Blind

Land of the Blind by Jess Walter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It just doesn’t get any better than when Jess Walter tells a story, and Land of the Blind, his second novel featuring Spokane Detective Caroline Mabry, is yet another sterling example of Walter’s creative genius—a book that is worthy of a five star rating.

The first big star speaks to the quality of the structure—an innovative approach that alternates between two narratives, each imbued with a voice that is as unique as it is engaging. Initial, and then rotating, chapters are told in third person as Carolyn Mabry is given the unwelcome task of taking a confession from a man whom police fished from a hotel ledge—a man everyone at the station is calling a “loon”. The only thing he will tell the officers is that he is confessing to a homicide, and he intially hesitates to offer anything further, not knowing where or how to begin. Eventually Mabry convinces him to write his confession—and write he does. In these chapters, told in first person, the man from the ledge recounts his story, seemingly being written even as the reader is consuming the words. He works his way to revealing his name, then to explaining his crime. In the interludes within his story, the reader is audience to Mabry’s investigation, as she works to first identify, then locate, the victim before the written confession is complete. In the tradition of most suspense novels, the plot snakes in serpentine patterns, twisting and turning as the action unfolds.

The second star is for that winding plot, at once convoluted and complex, complicated and yet somehow beautifully simple: a story of the cruelties of youth, first loves and the occasionally painful consequences of our ill-conceived actions. Though the overarching premise is one of a man’s guilt-ridden conscience, crime, and ultimate confession, it is the confession itself that is the heart of this work. It is filled with rich episode snippets in the life of a man with a fractured self-image that is based upon the perceptions of others. Readers born in the mid to late 60s will appreciate the references to the culture of the time—the products made popular, the music being played and even the athletes who were idolized—as the confessions plays out. Beginning with his childhood, the man from the ledge spends 48 hours filling tablet after tablet with a retelling of events that he claims led to the very recent death of a friend, a death for which is responsible.

Star number three is awarded for the dynamic and diverse characters. Though first published in 2003, the characters remain relevant today, 16 years later. From the high school bully to the consummate and quiet stoner, the academic young girl to the neighborhood outcasts, the reader is able to invest in each as their relationships are explored with glaring clarity, unedited and raw. Walter presents characters so real it is as if the reader can reach out and touch them as they reach back.

Star four is for the wordsmithing. If there’s any doubt as to Walter’s talent, that concern is extinguished through passages such as this:

“...she wore a long, tight print skirt with no sign of her old smart-girl self-consciousness, and watching her walk in it, a man could be forgiven if he thought of trading everything—family, career, self-respect—for one day spent tracing that skirt’s gentle roll over hips and thighs, to the calf, where a glimpse of smooth, tanned ankle revealed a simple silver bracelet, a dizzying piece of jewelry that was impossible to ignore, to avoid imagining it as the only thing left on her, gleaming in the light from a bedroom candle.”

His ability to paint a visual that is also sensual and moving is beyond reproach.

The final star is for Walter’s ability to tell a tragically compelling story that is also steeped in social satire and dark humor. There are laugh out loud funny moments as well as tragic revelations that will make readers weep; the idea that nature and nurture are inextricably linked, that we are as much products of our environments as we are victims of fate.

If you’ve never read Jess Walter’s work, I can only ask why not and encourage you to drop everything you’re doing and read it now. Land of the Blind is the perfect place to start.



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