Book Review

Slowly Downward by Stanley Donwood. This is a weird book. Well weird. Even the juxtaposition of author and title seems somehow not quite right but it is hard to pin down what is quite wrong.

The sub-title - A Collection of Miserable Stories - gives up the first secret. Amazon suggests '..clarity and minimalism like that of a haiku genetically spliced with propaganda leaflets and air-sickness-bag instructions.' This is the second, also telling us that Amazon reviewers are clever. The back cover includes a commendation from Thom Yorke and inside the cover we learn that the author has something to do with Radiohead's artwork. Ah, I see.

So we have a series of very short not really stories, more like ideas, any one of which a jobbing author should be able to mine for gold.

There is a lot of death, injury, hopelessness and general misery. To finish this review in the style...

I realised I couldn't write. In despair I walked to the kitchen, noticing the single word 'coffee' on the shopping board.