Fickle
by Peter Manus
Virgin Books, September 2008, $15.95

Fickle begins with a terse entry on the “Life is Pulp” website, as its moderator, L.G. Fickel, blogs, “Strange end to a strange evening tonight—at around 8:30 a man committed suicide by jumping in front of the inbound at the Mass Avenue T station.” The entry creates much excitement among the site’s fans, all devotees of noir. The excitement increases as Fickel reveals that the suicide occurred right before her eyes, and escalates as she describes how the police focus on her as their prime suspect. These revelations in turn provoke Fickel’s readers to offer advice and counsel, and to speculate on the nature of the jumper’s demise—was it suicide, or homicide?

A modern example of the epistolary (e-pistolary?) novel, Fickle is told entirely through the blogs of L.G. Fickel and the brash blogger Full Frontal, who also claims to have witnessed the jumper’s death. Manus does a credible job of juggling and evoking the multiple personalities involved, and of creating a sense of immediacy, as new facts and theories are revealed. It is the nature of these revelations that will make or break this book for readers. Some may grow tired of the constant kibitzing, while others might be elated by the constantly shifting terrain. In addition, the possibility that one or more narrators are unreliable will either make the book more perplexing or all the more intriguing, depending on your temperament. Either way, Fickle will keep you turning pages, if only to see what Manus comes up with next.—Hank Wagner

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 11:45 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.