Sunset Park by Paul Auster

 

Miles Heller is a one-man gloomfest. He’s haunted by the death of his stepbrother, estranged from his family and facing blackmail for conducting an under-age relationship. The 28 year-old flees Florida for a Brooklyn squat. There he joins a bunch of flatmates, each with their own personal raincloud: Bing is sexually confused, Ellen sex-starved, Alice in a dying relationship. Depression, suicide, infidelity, abortion and chlamydia all feature in a book that takes the 2008 economic crisis as its backdrop. Punctuated by rare moments of tenderness, Heller’s sorry story continues as he makes the transition from emptying repossessed properties to living in one. The sadness permeating his life, and those around him, should touch the reader. But because the story is narrated in a cool, detached voice, it's hard to feel sorry, to feel anything, for the book’s damaged characters. All of which might have been defensible were it not for the dismal conclusion. Sunset Park doesn’t so much draw to a close as screech to a standstill. It’s a story with a beginning, a middle and a gaping hole where the end should be. In a book groaning with glumness, the last page is the grimmest part of all. [James Carson]