The Lemur
Just finished the wafer-thin novella, The Lemur by Benjamin Black and for a while couldn’t believe this limp suspense coming from the same person who authored the Man Booker winner The Sea (one of my favourite reads). Well even if this is under a different pen name.
I’d admit I was more seduced by its cover - a somewhat poetic mugshot of a man masked by a cloud of smoke, presumably cigarette smoke. Never judge a book by its cover hasn’t been more true - the barely-there run-of-the-mill plot is as thin as the number of pages (132) could offer, the unlikeable characters flat as the book. Despite the skimpiness, the story proceeds at turtle pace and all the frustratingly slow build-up culminates in a whimper.
The novella suffers from the limitations from its original format - a New York Times Magazine’s serialization (you can read it online!). And undoubtedly, it worked better in that format or better still, like what the NYT Mag’s illustrations suggest, a graphic novel. But as a full fledged novel, disappointing.
