Inside Out (Will Elliott, HarperVoyager)

What begins as a story about Denton, an utterly unremarkable and unsuccessful young man, and his encounter with a bizarre new age cult, turns into a delightfully odd exploration of the ideas of self, consciousness and identity. This is because Denton’s mind is the stage for the other half of the story. It is a place populated by anthropomorphic representations of various aspects of Denton’s psyche: DM crafts Denton’s dreams, Len his nightmares, Mr Scott is the long-suffering head of the Logic Department, and Wetpatch is Denton’s mostly repressed libido, who runs around causing havoc. As the book progresses and Denton falls deeper into the thrall of the cult, perspective flashes between Denton and his cerebral denizens, who are desperately trying to cope with the flood of strange ideas that Denton’s head is being filled with. When Mister Ace appears out of nowhere, supplanting Mr Scott and giving instructions that do not appear to be in Denton’s best interests, battlelines are drawn—with Denton’s sanity, and perhaps even his life, at stake. It’s up to DM, Len and Mr Scott to save the day and get the girl (although the girl bit is mostly Wetpatch’s idea). This is a funny, clever book that is postmodern without being pretentious and meta without being contrived.

Stefen Brazulaitis is the owner of Stefen’s Books in Perth

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Category: Reviews