Have you heard this? You should. You really should. 

As you probably know, I love a good thriller film. The problem is, they seem about as hot in Hollywood as fantasy epics. Which is to say they’re few and far between. (Why is it that you can walk into any Blockbuster in America and see rows of generic horror films but virtually no thrillers?) One very good one that I saw last year was Breach, a slickly made and profoundly unsettling movie about FBI agent Robert Hanssen. The movie is carried by the wonderful Chris Cooper, who is the best actor on the planet as far as I’m concerned. What’s interesting about this particular film is how simple it is. Its notions of morality and ethics are stated so starkly that they become, by the end, eloquent. Even though you may know the real-life history behind this event, you will believe Cooper’s character in spite of your own wisdom. A crafty, well-acted, important movie, Breach is definitely one to return to the video store to check out. 

As you probably know, I love weird stuff. Fiction, movies, music–if it’s out of the ordinary, I’m likely to give it a shot. I just found the super-prolific genre magician Walter Mosely’s The Man in My Basement. It’s a good read so far–and yes, it’s very weird. The novel is about a black man who rents his basement to a strange, balding white man. At first things go as planned, and then they get…odd. The main character discovers that the man in his basement is building something. Something mysterious and potentially violent, something that may be intended for the main character himself. The novel is not a mystery, per se, but it’s extremely suspenseful, mostly because Mosley never tips his hand, never tells the reader exactly what’s going on. Infused in this subtlety is a highly-charged story of race and racism. It isn’t often that “thrillers” (and I’m going to call this novel a thriller) get to deep societal issues, but this is one of them. 

Just got into Cory Doctor’s new YA, Little Brother. It has to be said that I never read young adult fiction. Never. But I have been dying to get my hands on a good “science-fiction” (I’ll put that in quotes because I’m not sure that’s where Doctorow is heading with this book, as cutting edge and urgent as it is) for a long, long time. And there’s been a lot of buzz about this particular novel–and for good reason. It’s been a fantastic read so far. It’s about a kid named Marcus who is imprisoned after a terrorist attack. When he gets out, he finds that the world is under lockdown and everyone is being surveilled. Funny, hip, and damn informative–yes, I said informative. You can learn a lot by reading Doctorow; he seems to know everything there is to know about technology and how to hack into it. This is a highly recommended read that’s only been out for a short time. Even if you do not read much YA, I guarantee you’ll enjoy what Doctorow does with this highly original book. 

I love paranoid conspiracy thrillers. I really enjoy the feeling that everyone in a particular story is a potential suspect. Strangely, there aren’t many writers who do nuanced novels of this variety. The books that come out of this school–and some are very fine–tend to be big, bloated, and way overwrought. They’re often global in the Tom Clancy/Robert Ludlum fashion…which is fine, but I’m always looking for a thriller that is more contained rather than blown up all over the map. The best I’ve found in recent years is Joseph Finder’s absolutely brilliant Paranoia. Not only is this a fun read (and it is very, very fun; this novel embodies the “page-turner” handle), Finder expertly shows what can be done using first-person. Not often do you see first-person stories that crackle like this one. The voice, the plot, the character–Paranoia is just an expertly accomplished thriller that is in a class by itself.  

Someone e-mailed me a suggestion of a novel that’s similar to the television show Lost: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It’s a good example, mainly because the novel attempts to redefine the line of its own reality as the narrative progresses. I remember being drawn by the suggestion that House was a real manuscript when I first picked it up at Joseph-Beth Booksellers years ago. It’s a very scary (and flawed) novel about a strange house that seems to change dimensions once its owners move inside. Like Lost, it stretches genre: it’s essentially a horror novel, but sci-fi tropes abound. Also like Lost, Danielewski uses the false document theme to create “layers” in the story that supercede the constraints of reality. Good suggestion, reader. 

As I said below, there are hundreds of literary allusions in Lost. Some I recognize right away, others I have a vague notion about, and some slip right by me. The obvious ones — like Stephen King’s quartet The Stand, Carrie, The Langoliers, and The Shining – are referenced quite often. But one that I noticed in Season 2 was Flann O’Brien’s masterful surreal novel The Third Policeman. Lost fans would definitely be interested in this book, mainly because of how O’Brien uses and subverts issues of destiny and personal philosophy. Oh yeah. There’s also that strange “hatch”…

As you probably know, I’ve just begun watching JJ Abrams’ television show Lost. The show is interesting on quite a few levels, mainly because it’s well-written and well-acted and just a good TV program. But it also has levels of mystery (and mysticism) behind it, and each episode and plot twist creates a ripple of fan involvement that borders on the obsessive. The show not only asks for fans to participate, it demands it — and for a person who’s always been interested in metafiction and textual experiments, this is highly interesting. I was thinking recently about a book that might be “Lost-like,” but really could not think of one. (Obviously, this is partly because literature does not hold the cultural currency television does.) The show borrows infinitely from literature, from its characters to its narrative tropes to its very ideas. But as for a book that contains so many unanswered questions, so many combinations of genres, so many mythical elements outside the text? I’m not aware of one. 

As you probably know, I’m a huge David Shields fan. He’s one of those rare writers who can be tremendously funny and scathingly intelligent in the same sentence. I think I’ve read everything Mr. Shields has done, but my favorite has to be his seminal Black Planet. This book is a gem, and it’s a gem because it manages to be about so many different things. Basketball and individuality and race and the Seattle Supersonics creepy mascot and family and journalism. It is really a fantastic book, and I believe it could be enjoyed by sports fans and non-sports fans alike. You can’t discuss American sports without talking about race, and in this book Shields gets to the heart of both matters. 

Sometimes I enjoy books and movies that are a little bit against the grain. (My wife hates when I go into the movie store alone; she always fears I’ll come out with something like this.) The disappointing thing about the thriller genre is that there aren’t that many unusual books out there. People tend to want the same thing, those old fall-back tropes–and that’s fine, because I enjoy those as well. But sometimes a person wants a little spice. The best I’ve found in this vein in the last few years are the novels of Ken Bruen. Bruen’s an Irishman, so you know the jokes–and the liquor–are going to be flowing. And flow they do. Bruen’s character are so vivid they jump off the page, and the voice ranges from devastatingly deep to achingly funny, sometimes in the same sentence. If you’re looking for something a bit different, a bit out of the ordinary, you can’t go wrong with Bruen and his feisty, deadpan-honest Jack Taylor.