Primarily centered on two highly misogynistic men, one impoverished, one coming from privilege, who collude in taking out their aggressions upon an object of desire in a rich, gated community in which one of them works a menial job.

This reminded me quite a bit of Lolita, in so far as the perspective is able to tap into the consciousness of Polo, the main protagonist and labourer, and is primarily concerned with his spiralling thoughts as we get closer to the actual event the two men perpetrate. It’s coached in excuses and justifications in an attempt to garner sympathy from the reader even as it doubled back on itself and illustrates the way some of the information we get is completely false, or else altered, in an effort to allow Polo to think of himself as the protagonist of his story. It’s quite clever and I think works increasingly well as the narrative builds up its tension incrementally from the very first line.

The issue I had with this is a structural one. I get hung up on perspectives of narrators, and this feels so odd it shook me out of the fiction quite often. It’s privy to odd details while purporting most of the time to be a steam-of-consciousness like thing for Polo. It’s malleable with time, it separates from Polo for a time to look at the other perp. It just doesn’t actually seem like anyone could be telling the story in the way it is. It’s not a campfire story, it’s not a person; it’s just framing that doesn’t work for me. And on top of this the text is incredibly dense. Walls and walls of text for 10-15 pages at a time. Luckily, the prose work is excellent and flow is great so it isn’t too taxing, though hard on the eyes.

But it, again, seems like it communicated initially that Polo is racing toward the end and frantic perhaps, spiralling. But then because of the framing it makes no sense, as it sometimes is not Polo and so why is it solely possessing that characteristic in the dense paragraph structure? It reinforced my gripe over and over, a constant irritant. However I buddy read this was a great reader who had no problems at all, so I do think this is just a me, thing. But it does degrade my rating because I don’t measure my enjoyment, but do think it’s a legitimate craft issue.

Otherwise, it fulfills a lot of goals. It’s an intense story that humanizes the men, illustrating the systemic issues unaddressed, leading them to their crime. But also indicts them and holds them to account while it articulates their, frankly, lame excuses and privileged-as-men outlook as to what had happened. It’s a disgusting point-of-view, being in their heads, and that’s the point. A difficult thing to pull off that feels relatively effortless for the author. A lot here to like, I think. I’ll certainly pickup Hurricane Season after this effort.