Ian Orti

I started reading this book unsure of what I was in for. Now that I have finished the story, I am still not quite sure what I just read. An overall feeling that I find a little disconcerting.

The story is focused on Henry. One cannot help but feel sorry for Henry. He is proprietor of a run down cafe - I would love to say dilapidated but it is difficult to imagine patrons frequenting a food establishment/watering hole in such poor condition - who willingly rents the second floor flat over his cafe to a mysterious woman, known only as L, who shows up in the cafe one rainy evening. As you may guess, Henry is an affable guy who treats the maintenance of his cafe with the same carefree manner as he treats his patrons, moving potted plants under leaks instead of repairing them, always willing to provide patrons with a free drink to appease them and to keep the cafe open until the last patron leaves for the night.

L is a mystery. L is a conundrum. A conundrum that Henry silently welcomes into his life. You see, Henry's wife has taken to entertaining her lovers in their home while Henry is at the cafe. Henry knows all about this, in fact he is certain that one if not more than one of the guests at their dinner table during the party at the start of the story is his wife's lover. The story tends to flash between the dinner party and Henry's experiences at the cafe. Things start to get interesting, in a weird sense, when a construction contractor at the cafe talks about the mysterious overnight completion of renovation jobs he has started and a painter swears to having witnessed a woolly mammoth - yes, the extinct kind - wandering the streets of town. These stories don't phase Henry, although he does become a little unsettled when the furniture in the cafe appears to develop a mind of its own. That is when the story really takes on a surreal, indefinite quality of what is real and what is just a dream.

Orti's novel is different, I will give it that. I had some difficulty piecing together the story for the first 50 pages or so but after that it all started to fall into place, or at least as well as it could considering I really didn't have a handle on what was going on, which was probably the whole point. It is a sleeper of a dark mystery and while I did end up enjoying it, I can see how some readers may toss the book aside with a "what the .....". It is somewhat experimental and a little spartan in places, but, IMO, still worth giving it a try.… (mais)