THE PHILOSOPHY OF STRUGGLE
  • Blog
  • Chrysalis
  • TNFM
  • Music

The Philosophy
​of Struggle

Re-Print of BookLife Review for River of Blood

8/10/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
This brutal, philosophical crime novel spans generations in its examination of family myth, cycles of violence, and corruption and racism among police departments. O’Fuel (That Night Filled Mountain) traces the life of Sean Tower, a restless young man from a family of cops, from a childhood fascinated by violent comic books to years spent hoboing across America to eventual deployment as a police officer in an unnamed American city. Sean slowly develops a moral philosophy that places him at bloody odds with a police department infested with racketeers and white supremacists.

O’Fuel’s ambitious novel is an impressionistic swirl of past and present, especially in its first half, as passages of vivid family lore alternate with present-tense accounts of Sean’s childhood. The prose surges with anger, despair, and invention, but it’s not easily approachable. O’Fuel vaults among timelines and perspectives. Dialogue is scant, and at times the prose loses clarity as it strains for poetic effect: “Spooky details cloned in the repetitive scenes of spontaneous destruction will produce macabre moments of déjà vu.” O’Fuel’s scenes often fall into present-tense summary and focus on characters’ internal experiences, skimming through action that might have had greater impact if dramatized.
​

For readers willing to disorient themselves in O’Fuel’s sweeping and outraged narrative, the novel offers accounts of war, policework both bizarre and mundane, life on the road, suicides and cop murders, and, eventually, the pulpy violence readers might expect from a crime thriller. Even then, O’Fuel bucks simple convention by penning the climax as a lengthy, ruminative colloquy, the text stripped of quotation marks, the scene feverish and unsettling. This ambitious exploration of systemic violence and moral philosophy has a lot to offer for fans of dense, cerebral crime fiction.

​
BookLife Reviews
Buy River of Blood
0 Comments

    Archives

    August 2021
    March 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    November 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    Picture
    Chrysalis, a growing collection of very short fiction. 

    Picture
    That Night Filled Mountain
    ​episodes post daily. Paperback editions are available.




    My newest novel River of Blood is available on Amazon or Apple Books.

    Picture
    Unless noted, all pics credited to Skitz O'Fuel.

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Blog
  • Chrysalis
  • TNFM
  • Music