The Red Arrow
Ratings2
Average rating4.8
When a once-promising young writer agrees to ghostwrite a famous physicist’s memoir, his livelihood is already in jeopardy: Plagued by debt, he’s grown distant from his wife—a successful AI designer—and is haunted by an overwhelming sense of dread he describes as “The Mist.” Then, things get worse: The physicist vanishes, leaving everything in limbo, including our narrator’s sanity. Desperate for relief, the young writer undergoes an experimental, psychedelic treatment and finds his world completely transformed: Joy suffuses every moment. For the first time, he understands himself in a larger, universal context, and feels his life shift, refract, and crack open to reveal his past and future alike. Moving swiftly from a chemical spill in West Virginia to Silicon Valley, from a Brooklyn art studio to a high-speed train racing across the Italian countryside, The Red Arrow wades into the shadowy depths of the human psyche only to emerge, as if speeding through a mile-long tunnel, into a world that is so bright and wondrous, it almost feels completely new.
Tags
Genre
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
*spoilers 4.25 stars Literary fiction about an unnamed young artist who has been hired to ghostwrite the memoir of a physicist and goes to Italy to search for him this scientist while also coming to term with a treatment that helped him overcome his severe depression.
Sooo this was a truly dense book that deal with important themes like depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and mental health but also creativity and memories. It was not an easy read, very opaque with metaphysical ramblings and I'm not sure how accurate it was on its depiction of mental illness but I did like how life affirming it was in regards to depression (unlike THAT other book that I won't name but ifykyk) how the main character was able to heal from it. I also liked the metaphor of his depression as a mist, and how the writer wrote its inevitable wave coming for the character. The writing style mirrored the themes with a very dense prose, with long sentences that made me feel like I was holding my breath. There was a dizzy like quality to it that felt like some psychedelic fever dream. Told through the main character's memories of his life, as he goes and meet the subject of his ghostwriting, we see him at various stage of his life and how debilitating his depression was. Though his mental condition wasn't something I can relate to, I liked the character and his love for his wife was so wholesome. Some of the memories felt more interesting to read, especially his childhood memories concerning an environmental crisis in his town that read like a dystopian novel, with a creepy and scary atmosphere. The overall atmosphere felt too much suffocating for me at times so it was a longer reading process. Still, I feel this could be a great read for a book club, though I would look out for the trigger warnings before deciding to read it. The pacing felt off and ending felt a bit too abrupt for me. Because of the density of the prose and narration and the themes, this wasn't a perfect fit for me but still a thoughtful and engaging book especially for the hopeful character arc.
