South by Barak Lakghomi

I would like to thank Dundurn for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Dundurn Press

Published – Out Now

Price – £12.99 paperback £7.99 Kindle eBook

B, a journalist, travels to the South of an unnamed desert country for a mysterious mission to write a report about the recent strikes on an offshore oil rig. From the beginning of his trip, he is faced with a cruel and broken landscape of drought and decay, superstitious believers of evil winds and spirits, and corrupt entities focused on manipulation and censorship. As he tries to defend himself against his unknown enemies, we learn about his father’s disappearance, his fading love with his wife, and his encounter with an unknown woman. A puzzle-like novel about totalitarianism, surveillance, alienation, and guilt that questions the forces that control us.

Life is often confusing. We often realise that however much we want to take control that the universe seems to throw everything else in our way. Is that just random chaos or could we attempt to divine deeper agendas? In South by Babak Lakghomi a writer finds himself offered an opportunity, but it is a dangerous and unpredictable world that awaits him. Sadly, I found the book did not meet the task of projecting that feeling and instead just seemed to poorly replicate well-worn predictable paths.

B is a journalist trying to write a book about his absent father but recently hired to work as a freelance investigator. He goes to the South of the unnamed country and to cover the dangerous oil fields where people scrape by in ever more dangerous conditions. He is not trusted and he feels cut off from the world. He finds he may be getting investigated and someone knows about a one night stand he had that he is hiding from his wife. Are there corrupt governments or malign supernatural powers at work?

When you use lead characters with a single initial it is not hard to think of Kafka’s work and Lakghomi is definitely aiming for a strange claustrophobic world where every decision leads to more problems and no way out. But the book feels to be simply tries to be replicating these types of tales and many others seen in literary fiction without adding anything fresh itself or even getting the approach to provide a coherent narrative.

 Nearly all characters and locations are known by their titles rather than any names. So, we have characters such as The Editor or The Assistant Cook. I always struggle with this as it feels a little unimaginative type of storytelling and the characters here are fairly thin at the best of times. The story jumps constantly from B’s unhappy childhood, his affair, his love for his wife and his struggles with an editor who no longer likes the book he was said was great. It is a scattershot approach that I think is aiming for a demonstration of chaos but ultimately feels like it is lacking any plot. The book goes for a terse style but never really sits down to explain things. For 200 pages this tale felt much longer and got nowhere fast. Safe to say this is sadly not a book I can recommend.