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A review by st_urmer
The Long Take by Robin Robertson
5.0
Hands down the best book I have read from this year’s Booker nominees. Told in a riveting free verse format, it tackles so many things at once but never comes apart. The protagonist, a lost soul and noir antihero, arrives in Los Angeles haunted by his experiences in the war and ruing the loss of his idyllic home of Cape Breton, and the lost love left behind there, only to find a city rent by corruption and managed destruction and willfully ignorant of its suffering denizens. In the background, the swirling forces of film and jazz and politics serve as guiding forces as he reaches out to find connections that remain just out of reach. Filled with crackling language and vibrant imagery, this book may be the best thing I read this year.