Book Review
Title: An Evening of Romantic Lovemaking by Ben Slotky
Genre: Contemporary, Humour
Rating: DNF
All I knew about this before getting into it was we are following a stand-up comedian/terrorist as they perform to an audience that may or may not actually be there which had me intrigued and at only 120 pages long I knew I had to pick it up. The writing style of the novel took a minute to get used to as it is almost stream of consciousness as it is just the protagonist narrating everything he is doing. He is unnamed right now but we do learn he is 46, and in just a few days’ time he is going to be both divorced and bankrupt, he also has six children with his soon to be ex-wife. Due to this it seems like he has taken hostages in the theatre (I believe) he owns or used to own while performing for them but this performance is more about him ranting about the state of his life right now. The question of whether the audience is real remains but we do know he has a gun in his possession and he does make mention of bombs being in the building but we do have to question the mental state of the protagonist and how much of what is happening is real and what is happening in his head.
I continued reading An Evening of Romantic Lovemaking but things weren’t making much sense as it is just this guy ranting and raving at a possibly imaginary audience about the state of his life. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to it and nothing was driving the plot forward at all. I think the author might have been trying to make a point about something but it really wasn’t working for me. Maybe if it was told in a different style were we got to see something of the protagonist before he decides to take people, imaginary or not, hostage we could have liked him a bit more or at least be able to sympathise with him which I wasn’t able to do. I ended up making it about halfway through before I decided I had to put the book down, if you like books that are more stream of consciousness and really delve into the mindset of the protagonist then I think you might enjoy this book but it definitely wasn’t for me.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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