There is so much going on in this book, and all of it is good. The Long Take is so deserving of its place on the 2018 Man Booker Shortlist. I was hesitant about reading this- I’m always wary of extended narratives written in verse. I often find it gimmicky; that either the form or narrative suffers. This is not the case with The Long Take.
This book is about many things: post-war America, the veteran experience, isolation, poverty, and most interestingly to me, the life of cities. As an unapologetic, dedicated city girl, this part of the narrative really spoke to me. I love how the protagonist Walker sees cities as living entities, with stories, and hearts, and life cycles. A place is more than just a setting or a framework, it’s a character. Robertson is nuanced and insightful in discussion of all his major themes, but it was the analysis of the cities which spoke to me most.
How does Robertson tie all these big ideas together? For me, this was a story about crumbling and failure. But in spite of this, in the end I was reminded that all success is born of failure, and that it is in being broken and failing the we truly know ourselves.