Synopsis: “There couldn’t be a verb, an adjective, a noun, a pronoun profound enough to literarily liberate the emotion, the feeling, the thought and power felt below my feet as I turned onto that forested bypass, leaving the city and suburbs of my post-adolescence behind. It was freedom without a flag, pestilence without a cure; both likewise and subverted. And in lighting the spliff held gingerly between my aged, wrinkled and dilapidated lips, my destiny was prolonged only for the better. If the night were thicker, I might cast myself into an ocean of doubt. If my headlights were dimmer I might exalt myself under the most rude of Kings. It seemed that the only obstacle on the start of my journey was merely the wind; backward and pressing it was, as the Autumn always presumed it to be. And I felt as though I might be a kite without a string, a hook without bait; yes, the only deceit at my fingertips was the dirt beneath my fingernails. This journey of mine, wherever it took me, would be my last.”
In This House, We Lived, and We Died, is a story about a man, aged and lost, in mind, body, and spirit, whose last quest takes him into the deepest abysses, across the sharpest precipices, and through the darkest abscesses of his soul so that he may collect the shattered and sunken remains of his all-but vanquished memory.
4 Stars From Me.
What a book!
It takes a while to adjust your mind set to the unconventional writing style and layout of pages of this book.
It is most definitely an epic tale. Remiss of Dante’s Inferno and Homer’s Odyssey I guess and, for me, it also had an element of Will Self’s How The Dead Live about it.
Although all of those references are probably unfair to Dave Matthes as his book is most different to anything else I have ever read.
It is in some ways nothing more than a love story but in most ways so much more than that. An unpredictable journey through the afterlife, peppered with ultra absorbing mini stories along the way. I loved those most of all.
Not a fast read and not a frothy read, but definitely one to get your teeth into and to make you think about life (and after life) and what things are truly important to you.
Also, have to add, Dave Matthes seems like a really fab guy 🙂
Read and Rated 