DOWN TIME by Andrew Martin
I took a quick jaunt through this book, which seems to be (at least in the circles in which I travel) something of the "it book" of the moment.
It worked as a sort of "slow burn," in my opinion. The inscrutable muddle of life and life events throughout the Covid 19 pandemic felt like it did capture the experience of a certain cultural milieu. I won't say I'm frustrated that that milieu's perspective seems, maybe especially in this moment, utterly self involved and privileged, that the world as most of us might know sort of disappears, because this book just isn't that book, which, I think, remains to be written. For every sexually frustrated post-grad hoping to finish drafting a book, a thousand over the road truckers thrilled about lockdown exist.
The writing seemed to me competent but not extraordinary. The characters could sometimes feel a bit undifferentiated, something always made worse (for my poor reading ability) by some characters sharing similar names or initials. I thought very few settings seemed especially clear, since it's mainly focused on human drama, but that a more thoroughgoing exploration of some of those settings might've had value.
Anyhow, I'm wondering if others have read this book yet and, if so, what they thought about it?