Lowboy Cover (mine is a used hardcover, no dustjacket)
I ordered Lowboy on impulse when shopping online at Better World Books. They have a Bargain Bin where you can get books for $4 with shipping and handling, similar to Amazon, but Better World Books supports world literacy. Anyway, I saw a book about a paranoid schizophrenic narrator and thought, sure!
Title: Lowboy
Author: John Wray (John Henderson) (US & Austrian citizen)
Genre: Novel
Characters: William Heller/Lowboy, Ali Lateef/Rufus White, Yda/Violet Heller, Emily
Plot: The book opens with Will escaping from two men who he calls Skull & Bones. Several pages in, you start to see the sparking and shorting electric snaps of Will’s schizophrenia. The chapters trade off between Will and the police officer who is with Will’s mother, Yda/Violet. We get both sides of Will’s story intermittently as he rides the subways, seeks out Emily, and tries to find a way to save the world from burning. The main plot motivation is if they will catch him before he becomes violent; he has a criminal history. There is also allusion to a secret Yda is hiding.
Verdict: The dialogue of Will’s mind was what I imagine a schizophrenic brain to be like (because I think about these things). Especially in the first 2/3 of the book, the plot moves pretty quickly and you are wondering what exactly he thinks he needs to do and what will happen if he can’t do it or if he will end up snapping and hurting someone. The ending fizzled out for me, though. The secret wasn’t really that surprising and, to me, didn’t mean that much to the story (though I’m good at missing symbolism and meaning and whatnot). Maybe that’s why I didn’t like the ending. It was probably symbolic. It probably meant something. <shrug> Read it if you can’t stand to skip reading about paranoid schizophrenics. Or if you’re good at finding meaning. Otherwise, spend your time elsewhere.
Joy Reads 