Fickle

Such a good book up until the end. I am so confused, I had to read the last few chapters a few times and that didn't seem to help my confusion. Do you have to be a fan of noir to understand this kind of book? The blog style was different in a good way but I had a hard time decoding the blogging jargon. Can anyone dumb this book down for me....I now need the cliff notes version.

When I heard about this book, I was worried that the premise -- Boston blogger witnesses suicide on a T platform(or was it murder?) and shares her experiences as witness/suspect with her online community -- might be a little gimmicky. I know the author, so I was going to read it regardless ... but, because I know him, I guess you could say I was worried for him!Concerns all groundless. The format works -- it's more than just a cool idea, and Manus absolutely makes the most of it. With the story unfolding through blog posts and comments, you're always off-balance, and always curious about who's going to say what next. Characters are developed through their realistic comments and interactions with each other.About the PW review: Perhaps some of the language might offend some really delicate/prudish readers. But, given it's meant to be noir-noir-noir, I can't see anyone picking it up if they're not up for something a little bit on the dark side. To me the online voices are very real -- anyone who has frequented social sites where people congregate under anonymity is probably familiar with the rawness many people like to explore when they know no one knows who they are. I think Manus captures that phenomenon adeptly.I read many, many mysteries and thrillers (of all the genres, really), so I'm no pushover. This one kept me engaged the whole way, with the multiple voices allowing for lots of perspectives and possible answers to the mystery (addressing the annoying, unsatisfying feeling you get with so many mysteries that everything is just too tidily resolved in the end).Fans of Patricia Highsmith and other writers whose books have interesting, darker characters at their center will like this, I think. Also should appeal to people who enjoy literary thrillers (lots of wonderful details delicately drawing from literature, movies, and the Boston setting are delicately interspersed to contribute to the story). Also recommended if you crave more modern or "intelligent" mysteries that demand a little more engagement from the reader.Can't wait to see what Manus comes up with next!

The central conceit of Fickle is that its action is conveyed entirely through the blogs of a flighty young woman who goes by the moniker L. G. Fickel and the brash mystery man Full Frontal, both of whom had a unique perspective on what the police originally label a suicide but soon come to suspect is something far more sinister. Fickel claims the man leaped to his death, while Full Frontal maintains that Fickel pushed him into the path of an oncoming subway train.Manus does a remarkable job of juggling a huge cast, as the novel's players also include the myriad fans of noir who frequent Fickel's "Life is Pulp" website, all of whom have wildly differing personalities and opinions, all of whom have no problem in brashly expressing both. The nature of the narrative creates a sense of immediacy, and of urgency, as increasingly disturbing revelations are doled out. It is the nature of these revelations that will make or break this book for readers. Some may grow weary of the unending kibitzing and online bickering, while others might be intrigued by the constantly shifting terrain; in addition, the possibility that one or more narrators might be lying will make the book more annoying or more engrossing, depending on your tolerance for ceaseless shocks and surprises.

The novel begins with the death of a man beneath the wheels of a Boston train, described in all its horrifying detail on the first pages of the book, "lightening up" to a rundown on the clothing worn by the dead man including the names of the designers, by a woman to her blogmates. The entire book is done in the form of a blog, something which takes a bit of getting used to, but after the first several pages seemed almost natural, even to this blog-averse reader. The 25-year-old blog creator goes by the name of "fickel" [sic], the site name "Life is Pulp," the contributors to the blog described by one of them as "internet-hooked noir freaks."The entries contain an incredible amount of minutiae, something I would guess is part of what blogs are [only reinforcing my anti-blog attitude, I must admit]. Another blog is interspersed with this one, after a while causing doubt in the mind of the reader about what should or should not be taken at face value.In the aftermath of the death, the police soon discover that apparently the woman who witnessed the presumed suicide and its victim knew each other, and she becomes an "unofficial figure of interest." Other deaths follow, and all the details are set forth in blog entries, though at some point the question comes up, with her blogmates as with the reader, as to reliability of the narrator.The point is made by a blog contributor that "we don't know the secret demons that lurk inside the people we meet," something made dramatically clear in these pages. Despite being uneven, the book is ultimately suspenseful, different, original, and several other adjectives I can think, of all of which add up to an interesting but to this reader somewhat unsatisfying read.