Things Unseen is the second David Isaak book that I have read and I can say, with ease, that I enjoy his fiction. The narratives have snappy and believable dialogue, a plot that has direction and a clear purpose, and the narratorial voice is fluid and devoid of comprehension obstacles.
In Things Unseen, Walker Clayborne, our narrator goes to Yucca Valley in the Californian desert to identify his sister’s body and find out who murdered her. He is, by his own admission, reserved and skeptical about a lot of things that cannot be explained. Isaak has his protagonist thrust into an atmosphere of religious tension where zealots are keen to reinforce the word of the Bible but these are contrasted with people with freer thinking, whose faith and spirituality is less tied to human constructs and more to exploring the soul through ritual and mind altering substances. In exploring and meeting the people who knew his sister, Walker also finds out that Claire was very highly thought of by some but not all and, in searching for the truth about what happened to her, makes both enemies and friends.
I felt like there were a lot of characters in this book, most of them minor and I’m not sure how needed some of them were. It did, I will admit, take me time to get who was who in my head. That being said, Isaak’s depiction of Walker as a staid man approaching middle age, who is taken very much out of his comfort zone, is firm. He is likeable and following him on his voyage of discovery is interesting and philosophical, and presents a lot of conflicting ideas with a view to discussing their validity through Walker’s encounters with them.
The last few chapters of the book are the best; Isaak ramps up the pace as Walker loosens his conservative and derisory outlook leading to his limiting preconceptions, and becomes more open to what he can’t see or explain. One particular chapter where Walker is encouraged to find out the truth about his sister using unorthodox methods was particularly well described.
Still a 4 star read, I didn’t rattle through this as quickly as A Map of the Edge as it took me longer to get into, maybe because of the amount of characters: it was interesting and entertaining nonetheless and offered an intelligent novel around subjects much debated.
Scuffed Granny 