I remember seeing the cover of this book a few years ago and being intrigued. It looked like the kind of thing I’d enjoy reading. Last December I decided that I’d give it a go, but when searching for a copy I read a couple of reviews that described it as unbearably bleak and depressing. I wasn’t exactly having a holly jolly Christmas, so I decided to postpone reading anything that might make me feel any worse. A couple of weeks ago, I was browsing my local library when I found a copy of Negative Space sitting on the bottom of a shelf. I took it home and spent the weekend with it.
So yeah, this is about a town where the local teenagers are all killing themselves. There are three narrators who weave the narrative of the final months of their friend Tyler, a particularly deranged youth. Most of these teens are fucking each other and getting fucked up on whorl. Whorl is a hallucinogenic that seems to have bizarre mystical qualities.
One of the characters is trans, but their transition is never actually addressed, and the reader is left to figure out that Lou and Lu are the same person. This goes with the quasi-philosophical element of the book that questions stuff like existence, identity and relationships. I think this is where a lot of the horror of the book is supposed to lie. I can imagine this being a real bummer to a person who didn’t already have a dim view of existence. There is an actual supernatural element to what’s going on, but it’s really not the scary part.
There are quite a few graphic depictions of self harm. I’d definitely avoid this book if that might upset you. In truth I was a little surprised at my own capacity to take it in. This is horrendous bloody stuff, but it’s happening to characters with more depth than the victims of most gory splatterpunk.
Overall, I was entertained by Negative Space. It is by no means a pleasant book, but reading it didn’t ruin my weekend. I know that B.R. Yeager has written a couple of other books. Maybe I will read them in the future.
Nocturnal Revelries 