MALL

As you might have guessed, I gave up on Edward. He and his little Twilight entourage did nothing for me. I felt bad just dumping him, especially when he was supposed to be so sexy and all. But, hey, c’est la vie. Us middle-aged women don’t have a whole lot of time to waste.

So, I’ve moved on to Eric. As in Eric Bogosian. If you clicked on that link, well, there’s no denying that he’s no pretty boy like Edward. But his mind is deep. And dark. (Plus, there’s always this picture, which is far better.)

Yeah, I did mention dark, didn’t I? Okay, so you’re forewarned. I raved about his most recent book Perforated Heart here. I loved that book so much that I thought I should chase down all his books and gobble them up. He’s well-known for his monologues and plays, but his first novel was MALL, published in 2000.

 
Bits from the inside dust jacket:

An outrageous novel about five suburbanites whose lives intersect in one violent and life-altering night — at the local mall. In this, his first novel, Eric Bogosian delivers a dark, hilarious and biting commentary on an American culture fraught with sex, drugs, violence and congested thinking.

Reading this novel was like watching a really well-done suspense film. You want to turn away because you just know something bad is going to happen, but you just have to keep watching to see how it all blows up in the end.

I’m no book reviewer, so I’ll leave you with a summation from John Casey to tempt you into trying out this book:

“MALL is a fast wild ride from Chapter One — big acceleration through all five gears. What makes it a lot more than an action story is the series of swift shrewd psychological sketches of characters who happen to be at the wrong mall at the wrong time. You might think Pulp Fiction and you might think Ben Jonson and you’d be right both times.”