Customer Reviews

Undersurface

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

As unsettling as it is revealing, Undersurface is bold attempt at merging Hitchcockian mystery with social commentary. On one level it is a simple tale of mistaken identity, in which the protagonist finds himself living in sewage tunnels to escape capture for a crime he may or may not have committed; on another level it is a heartbreaking, sometimes surreal character study of a man losing his grip on reality. More than anything, it is the insight into the character's mind that drives this novel along. To say more could ruin the ending. I'll only add that this vivid, finely written book won't be for everyone, but for those who enjoy the melding of genres and well-envisioned plot twists it certainly won't be a disappointment.

I wanted to like this book, I truly did. But in the end, it left me completely unfulfilled.
Here is my main problem with the book. Many novels, as does this one, start in the present and then flashback to the past to see how the protagonist actually made it to this current place. However, in order for this to work, a reader's attention must be grabbed at the very beginning to make us truly wonder and care about how things became the way they are. In this book, the present (as it starts out) is very bland and uneventful. The past, as we find out later, actually had some good twists and turns. However, by the time we get to the previous events, we really don't care about the main character or his predicament.
While some of the descriptions are quite good and vivid, this short book will leave most readers completely unmoved.