There Is No Year by Blake Butler

There Is No Year: A Novel

A Novel by Blake Butler

Book Description

A family of three: father, mother, son.
A house that gives them shelter but shapes their nightmares.
An illness that nearly arrested the past, and looms over the future.
A second family—a copy family. Mirror bodies.
Events on the horizon: a hole, a box, a light, a girl.
Holes in houses. Holes in speaking. Holes in flesh.
Memories that deceive and figures that tempt and lure and withdraw.
There Is No Year is the astonishing new novel by Blake Butler.
It is a world of scare, a portrait of return, a fable of survival and the fierce burden of art.

What I Can Tell You:

This was the craziest book ever and I mean that in the nicest way. It was a total, creepy, odd, trippy, journey into the kind of psychological, scary imagery I love in my horror movies. It was like reading a nightmare come to life. There is nothing like this out there.

The complexity of Blake's writing is why I call myself the Amateur Book Reviewer. It would take a semester of sitting with Blake to understand the nuances and details of this story.

The story centers around a family. Mom, Dad and a Son who is recovering from a life threatening illness. When they enter the house there is another family who looks just like they do. They set them outside on the porch and move in. The Chapter have great titles like Room of Hair, The Copy Mother In Particular, Disease Relics, Job (which consists of one paragraph) and more. It is extremely hard to review this book. I would need to read it two more times to fully grasp it, which I don't see it happening for a while due to the volume of pages 401.
 
Example
Chapter, Night: The mother grew, filled up with nothing - cells in cells on cells, a house.
 
You can get two distinct stories based on your perception. We could be watching a family living a horror in a house that is literally eating them up alive, mind, body and soul or we can see a family dealing with the devastating cards life had handed them and how they lose themselves in life.

I love everything about this book, the size, the pages, the blurry photos.

If you are looking for something different, this IS the book for you.

Disclosure: I receive a complimentary copy from Harper Collins for my honest opinion.