“I’m sure this comes up somewhere in Revelation.”
“You try not to become a full-blown alcoholic,” she says. “Fetishize small pleasures. A good water bottle. A first edition of a novel you like. A really good cup of coffee. The crack as a needle hits the record.”
“I have measured out my life in coffees I cannot technically afford.”
If Endling, Flesh, and Audition had a baby, it would be Luke Kennard’s Black Bag. I will not be explaining that any further. Right now, Black Bag is at the head of the pack in my Booker rankings. (To date, I’ve only read five.) At first glance, it just appears an absurd, funny little story. And while it is hilarious, writing it off as a “funny” book does it a disservice. It belongs on the longlist, and unless I’m completely wowed with the following 8 selections, it also belongs on the shortlist. It’s well done. It holds your attention. It makes you think. It makes you feel. And it makes you question what is real.
Our unnamed and out-of-work actor takes a gig on campus wherein he will wear a bag and attend Dr. Blend’s seminar and lecture every week. Dr. Blend is conducting an experiment. Our unnamed narrator takes his craft very seriously – a method acting approach that renders him nearly unable to function outside of the bag. He frequently refers to himself as a snail or a hermit crab, the bag initially representing safety, security and anonymity, but it grows into so much more – for our narrator, his friend Claudio, and the community.
Is it funny? Yes. There’s a talking border collie puppy, a scene where the bag takes a swan pedal boat as a form of transportation, a shakedown from a cockold husband whose voice modifier malfunctions so that he sounds like a child, murder mystery theater, questionable money-making schemes, and the main character goes around London in a Black Bag. (Getting coffee, getting in a fight, having sex, etc.)
But it is oh so much more. Of the five I’ve read, this is the one that will stand up most to a reread. There is so much going on and humor makes it easy to bypass the not so funny, but this is a book to be experienced. I’ve called it a chaos goblin, and I stand by that.
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 