The Globus Effect

A fairytale village where time has stopped because the town bell has not been tolled in weeks, the story of a certain beach overheard in Mexico City, chasing a box of chocolates to a hotel through the streets of Barcelona, working shifts at the university canteen in Amsterdam, photographing the furniture in his apartment during a cabin fever day, the magnetism of witnessing a car crash on his way to school, fighting a cicada on a boat.

Although very distinct, the scenes are bound by a common thread: the narrator doesn’t feel with his heart or chest, his stomach or his head. Every intense sensation travels through the neck and its elaborate chambers - jaws, tonsils, root of the tongue, esophagus, mapping out the entire area of his emotional center.

You discover a hypersensitivity to human nature through a fine dissection of character. Reality cracks at some point, and fantasy creeps in through assumption, imagination, or paranoia. Dense and descriptive, reading feels like a real-time rendering of an image, becoming more detailed by the second and guiding your eyes to points of interest or fear. It carries you through a well built maze, where navigating is more rewarding than the exit.

A book about tension and obsessions.