The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman: I got this book at the library the same day I felt compelled to get a jar of President's Choice bacon marmalade at Loblaws. Both weird, both delicious.
I read Klosterman's collection of essays, Drugs, Sex and Cocoa Puffs, just for the title, and I really liked his first novel, Downtown Owl. The Visible Man is like putting those two books in a blender and adding bacon marmalade. And some hitherto uncatalogued strain of medicinal marijuana. The result is a very funny, very strange, very thoughtful, intensely interesting piece of fiction about a man who invents an invisibility suit (and cream!) and seeks therapy to talk about the lives he has interfered with while invisible. Interfered with like how? Invisible man: "There's nothing like watching a nervous man load a gun." How does the therapy proceed? As the therapist says, "No therapist on earth was trained to help a criminal scientist with the power of invisibility."
I slowed my reading because I didn't want the book to end. But it did end, and now I feel compelled to read it all over again. It's better than bacon marmalade, because honestly, you can only eat about a teaspoon of that stuff at a time. While you're eating, you're thinking, "This is good. But it's so wrong." Reading The Visible Man, I kept thinking, "This is wrong. But it's so good."
Recommended reading:
Klosterman, Chuck. The Visible Man. New York: Scribner, 2011. Print.
Pair it with Chipotle flatbread, cream cheese and President's Choice Black Label bacon marmalade.
So weird, so delicious.
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