Blackbox: A Novel in 840 Chapters

Publishers Weekly

"Any one of us is only six acquaintances away from anyone else," hints stewardess Stephanie Wiltshire at the outset of Walker's high-speed, disquieting debut, which features the not-so-random interactions of 20 of the most ludicrously manic characters imaginable. As Flight SA841 touches down at Birmingham International Airport from New York, an unidentified female stowaway on another plane begins her countdown through 840 concise chapters (many are just a line or two long), each of which builds urgently toward the disclosure of her identity and her fate. Air traffic controller Michael Davies guides SA841 to its gate, then drives home listening to psychoanalyst Dr. Frankburg's smash-hit self-help tape, You Too Can Fly, which is popular among airline industry employees and aviophobes alike. Distracted by the tape, Davies nearly hits a pedestrian later revealed to be yet another piece in the puzzle, before reaching home and his phobia-obsessed wife. The rest of the cast includes an "unfunny" comic whose act features a simulated suicide, an aspiring anticorporate terrorist, a suicidal pilot, a morgue assistant and a Welsh actor coping with the suicide of a Scottish actress and friend, all of whom are connected in some way to the death of a Chinese woman more than 20 years earlier. Walker's inaugural work is so clever that it seems to be the product of years of careful contemplation, yet so electrifying that it is just as easy to imagine him writing it in one sitting. His respect for his readers' attentiveness is palpable and refreshing, and a character list included at the front of the book is helpful in sorting out any momentary confusion. (Sept.) Forecast: Walker's quick-cut styling won't appeal to everyone, but those willing to take the plunge will find the novel surprisingly easy reading; like the cult film Run, Lola, Run, it delivers a postmodern, high-power adrenaline rush. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A review of a first novel in nine sentences. 9.) While the numbers of the chapters tick off in inevitable sequence from 840 to 1, the story, which only gradually reveals itself to be about an airliner crash, circles overhead in pleasing but at times seemingly aimless, patterns. 8.) The large cast of characters involves a disparate array, everything from a counterfeit therapist to an air traffic controller to a dead actress. 7.) John Heron is a comic billed as "Unfunny John" who lives up to his name; his routine consists of succumbing to the worst case of flop sweat in theatrical history and ends with his faking suicide. 6.) Exiting stage left, Unfunny John tells the comedian waiting in the wings, "You're on." 5.) Why do we think all pilots look and act like Alan Alda? 4.) This book forces us to rethink that scenario. 3.) The author, a British writer and performer with Talking Birds, a mixed-media production company, probably won't be available for U.S. tours (he has an acute fear of flying). 2.) This intermittently funny book might be of interest to fans of Douglas Coupland who don't have any flight plans in their future. 1.) Purchase where there's an interest in quirky, experimental fiction.-Bob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Twenty depressed and/or depressing strangers meander toward a bad day. First-novelist Walker's mostly unsympathetic characters are loosely drawn together by the common threads of direct or close involvement in suicide and commercial air travel. An unfunny comic, a morgue assistant, radio talk-show host, airline pilot, actor, writer, shrink, air-crash investigator, self-help therapist, imposter self-help therapist, ex-flight attendant, murderous street person, air-traffic controller, former government agent, dead actress, and dead father of the dead actress boldly-all of these exhibit their neuroses in hundreds of vignettes. Comic John Heron's idea of a laugh is bombing horribly and then faking his handgun suicide before the hostile crowd. He's no crazier than Dr. Frankburg, the self-help therapist, afraid to be alone in his own office, hiring an actor with a sexy Welsh accent to be his voice on a self-help tape. And he's certainly no worse off than Dr. Frankburg's daughter, who authors a stream of suicide notes to her unbelieving father. Outwardly at least, the scariest of the lot is Edward Wiltshire-"The Fireman," a street creature with a pyromaniac background and a current interest in car bombs who sometimes gets his direction from talk radio and performs self-surgery to get a look at his own liver. This bunch of nuts-some in England, some in Manhattan, some flying between the two-expose little of what made them crazed or of the grand scheme one assumes is emerging over the course of the 840-chapter countdown. Numbered in descending order, the format falsely suggests building momentum and a rewarding conclusion. Some of the "chapters" are blank, nothing but the chapter number; many areno more than a few words. With virtually no distinction in voice from one character to the next, be it Manhattan taxi driver or Scandinavian airline pilot, it's tough to know which neurotic is babbling when. What is conveyed clearly is across-the-board desperation. A relentlessly grim trudge through uninteresting territory, with scant reward for the considerable effort.