64th book of 2023. #7 in my challenge with Alan: read a prose/poetry book.

3.5. This is two birds with one stone, a book towards the challenge and an impromptu recommendation from my manager. I'd never heard of it. Turns out it's a Goldsmith winner and was longlisted for the Booker prize back in 2018.

Robertson has written an interesting, longform prose poem about a man returning from the Second World War, and rather than going to face his family back in Nova Scotia, he goes to LA. It's about the decline of the city as well as Walker's PTSD. Throughout there are italicised flashbacks from his time fighting. I had the biggest problem with these bits: some were quite graphic and moving, there was one description about a man's throat being cut by shrapnel, and as he panicked and fumbled at his throat, Walker remembers it as if he was a man adjusting a napkin that was falling from its place. Others felt a little over-the-top, corny, with flowers of blood bursting from men, and tank doors bowling down the road. At times they took me out of what is otherwise a slow and quiet novel about a man, the crumbly post-War Los Angeles and PTSD. A rewarding read. Extra points for the beautiful black-and-white photos of 50s LA with every new chapter.