Looking For a Good Book

Being an actor is hard work, especially when the actor doesn’t live in an area with a thriving film or stage community. Our main protagonist in Black Bag, by Luke Kennard, is such an actor. He’s a big fish in a small pond, generally getting roles in local productions. But that’s not enough to sustain the actor – especially when a job falls through.

Our unnamed protagonist in question responds to an ad from a university professor, looking for an actor. The job: to wear a giant black bag and attend his lectures, making no sounds. It’s a test, of course, to see how the students react. The test is on-going through the semester, and the actor begins to wear the black bag to and from the school, riding the bus and going to tea shops in his black bag.

The actor takes his work quite seriously and reflects, himself, on how others react to him as black bag. He even connects with a woman who is turned on by his anonymity in the bag.

The bag becomes more than just a job – it is a way of life – and when the job ends abruptly, what does that mean when it’s truly become more than just a job?

I loved this book. But it should be noted that I do love quirky, off-beat, even absurd fiction. This is definitely quirky and off-beat in the very best of ways. It borders on absurd but never quite tips over, making it even more off-beat because it’s rooted so well in the ordinary.

Our protagonist, unnamed, is a sort of Everyman, discovering more about himself and the world around hm through his black bag. Love, sex, trust, and camaraderie are among the lessons he learns through his wearing of the black bag.

**SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!**

(Skip the next section if you don’t want to read any potential spoilers. Instead, trust that I liked this book a lot and you should consider reading it.)

When the university professor who hired our bag-wearing actor is sacked (pun intended) before the end of the school year, Black Bag’s world is turned upside down. More than just being worried about how he’ll make money from that point on, his whole sense of being, his sense of self-worth is put into question. Who is he if he isn’t Black Bag? (The answer to that comes in a scene that tips the book just a little heavily into the absurd.)

Funny, but thoughtful, I am reminded of classic literature, such as Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist,” Gogol’s “The Nose,”  and Sartre’s Nausea. Admittedly, that’s a pretty intense group of authors to be compared to, but I did enjoy this book quite a bit.

Looking for a good book? Luke Kennard’s Black Bag is a deceptively simple tale of an actor who begins to wear a body-sized black bag as part of a sociology study for a local school. The black bag becomes an integral part of the actor’s life.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Black Bag

author: Luke Kennard

publisher:  Zando

ISBN:  9781638933380

hardcover, 352 pages