Clear

May 9, 2005
With her fresh, confident sophomore novel (after Behindlings)
, Barker offers a meditation on illusionist David Blaine's feat of self-starvation—44 days spent suspended in a clear box above the Thames River. Analytical narrator Adie, a prickly, literate young man who works in an office overlooking the Blaine spectacle, carefully dissects the psychology of both Blaine and the hordes of onlookers who feed him attention as he slowly starves. Meanwhile, Adie's own drama unfolds, set off by a strange encounter with Aphra, a perplexing girl with a freakish sense of smell and a fetish for vintage shoes who spends her nights on the riverbank watching Blaine sleep. As Adie's involvement with Aphra grows more complicated, his initially cynical interest in Blaine becomes more obsessive. "Perhaps... this loopy illusionist has tapped into something.... A fury. A disillusionment," Adie muses, ruminating on the vileness and beauty that Blaine's presence has brought out among Brits. Despite Adie's determined disdain for the man, the unwelcome "Hunger Artist" leads him to wonder if "Some things are beyond the reach of art. Some words are meaningful beyond understanding." Offbeat and authentic, intellectual and accessible, Barker's is an original voice.

June 1, 2005
Clear, like the box in which illusionist David Blaine fasted, high above the Thames, for 44 days in 2003. (Remember?) That central event provides backbone and metaphor for this quirky, ingenious romp through the foibles of modern society. As he observes the craven swarming around Blaine, the narrator, Adair Graham MacKenny, deconstructs their behavior into concepts like illusion, celebrity, and hunger. With his distinct voice and jaded personality, Adair is well equipped for deconstruction (he spends quite some time focusing these talents on the classic western Shane). Then, too, he has his own odd behaviors to consider, not to mention those of his alter ego/nemesis Aphra and his black roommate Solomon. With the flavor of a very R-rated Monty Python movie, Barker's latest is a wicked and literate cultural send-up deserves wide readership. Highly recommended.-Robert E. Brown, Minoa Lib., NY

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