Looking For a Good Book

I tend to be very leery of books that advertise some literary award on the cover.  In my experience, most literary award winning books are winners because of how they played with form rather than substance and I’ve rarely enjoyed a literary award winning book and this was no exception.

In a suburb of Algiers an unnamed man escapes a troubled past by caring for an old man with dementia. When the old man dies, the unnamed care-giver disappears without a trace. A local police detective is called upon to investigate the old man’s death and the disappearance of the unnamed man. The investigation takes the detective to many locations where he meets people who crossed-paths with the now-gone care-giver. Slowly the detective forms a picture of the missing man and it is a dark and dangerous picture.

This was slow.  Very, very slow. And slow in itself isn’t always bad, but I never felt like it was going anywhere. And, frankly, it didn’t.

I was drawn to this because of the title. It seemed like it was borderline absurd and at the very least existential – two concepts that I tend to enjoy. But I think this was more a detective mystery that lacked focus. We don’t really get to know anyone and if our detective isn’t the focus, then the man he’s chasing should be. How do you focus on someone unnamed and who disappears willingly?

In a case like this, I often wonder if it’s the book, or the translation that doesn’t deliver. But being an award winner (for an award I’ve never heard of but which is proudly proclaimed on the cover) I tend to think the former.

This is not a book I would recommend.

Looking for a good book? The Disappearance of Mr. Nobody by Ahmed Taibaoui is not it. 

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

2 stars

* * * * * *

The Disappearance of Mr. Nobody

author: Ahmed Taibaoui

publisher:  The American University in Cairo Press

ISBN: 9781649032157

hardcover, 152 pages