Ohle, David. Motorman. 1972.

In December 2002 Publishers Weekly asked writer to recommend books, and Motorman was one of the recommendations of the wonderful Shelley Jackson. "Surreal," as it turns out, is a word I have until now overused. This books has a few central characters. One of them is a doctor, one of them is Moldenke, and the third is ubiquitous and sinister. Moldenke chews stonepicks, wanders the bottoms, and dispatches a couple of jellys. The overt jumps in the plot make it more difficult to track the subtle jumps in the plot. Although one could easily spend the whole novel wondering about the setting. There is a city referred to in the story called Great Chicago, but the presence of multiple suns and moons suggest that it the book takes place on some planet other than earth, until one discovers that suns and moons are constructed by characters and by the government. It takes real skill to write a story so confusing that it is unclear what time or planet it is set on or in, or even what genre it is. Deft and lovely turns of phrase are the brushstrokes of this painting, and one is not tempted to ask too many questions. But exactly which questions we should be asking, which questions are answered or at least problematized, remains unclear after my one reading. For example, why is the only food in the book totally disgusting? Or: is the bizarre and cruel subplot about the extermination of black people meant to be funny, weird, or a criticism?