50books_poc | The Water Cure by Percival Everett

42. The Water Cure by Percival Everett

Um... I don't know what to say.

Every single day I picked up this book to read it, I had to make a decision about my mental state. "Should I read this, or should I read something that won't hurt so damn much?" More often than not, I ended up reading. I can't explain the compulsion that drew me on. I'm usually not a masochistic reader, but Everett somehow hooked me here.

This is a horrendous book. It's an inside glimpse at a mind that has snapped. Ishmael Kidder is the divorced father of an 11 year old girl who was raped and murdered. When the police release their number one suspect for lack of evidence, he kidnaps the man, duct tapes him to a board in his basement, and tortures him. The entire book consists of his torture. There is nothing else here.

Or maybe there is. Everett is a very sophisticated writer and he takes his complete lack of plot in a thousand different directions. It's a critique of the irresponsibility and brutality of the Bush administration's anti-terror doctrine. It's a look at what fatherhood means. It's a look at why we search for meaning.

But mostly it's a horrendous book, a powerful, hair-raising, monstrous book that I couldn't put down. I'd recommend you stay away.

tags: a: everett percival, african-american, postmodernist