She Treads Softly: The Deepest Black

Sunday, July 31, 2022

The Deepest Black

The Deepest Black by Randall Silvis
8/16/22; 320 pages
Poison Pen Press

The Deepest Black by Randall Silvis is a very highly recommended metafiction true crime memoir where Silvis is the main character.

When Silvis can't come up with the idea for a new novel he just happens to meet a stranger at a buffet who tells him about a murder case in a nearby small town in Pennsylvania’s rural Mercer County. Thomas Kennaday tells him some vague details about a local mystery involving an abandoned baby and the shooting deaths of two adults and a child. Then he mentions a young woman who will have more details, Phoebe, a resident of the house where the shootings occurred. The problem is that she only reveals small portions of the story as dictated by Kennaday, and there is much more going on that is apparent in her comments. This sends Silvis on a quest to uncover what really happened and why Kennaday told him about it.

Written like a true crime story this odd genre bending novel follows the plot of a true crime novel and a mystery but also veers off into supernatural. Silvis is the main character and narrator. I may be an outlier, but I though it was not only totally engrossing, but un-put-downable. Sure there are references to various collusions, unknown sections of alphabet agencies, an abuse ring, inexplicable events, spirituality, UFOs, oppression, mind control, men in black, and more, but it all made sense within the narrative. I appreciated his honest opinions about events he is observing in the novel.

Obviously, this is a novel that will work brilliantly for some readers and not for others.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Poison Pen Press via NetGalley.

No comments:

Post a Comment

John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.