Started Early, Took My Dog
Review of the novel by Kate Atkinson (#4 in Jackson Brodie series)
The author doesn’t care about plausibility and that yields delightful results. In this the fourth of the Jackson Brodie series, two private eyes who don’t know one another, named Jackson Brodie and Brian Jackson, search for the same missing person for different reasons. If she says it happened, it happened, and you’ll enjoy the telling of it — the more convoluted and seemingly disjointed the better. From the narrative magic she performed in the previous three novels, she earned your trust that all the pieces will come together in the end.
Some of my favorite passages:
“… all part of the semi-autistic male impluse to collect — a need for order or a desire to possess, or both.” p. 45
“As far as Jackson was concerned, God slipped out of the building a long time ago and he wasn’t coming back, but, like any good architect, he had left his work behind as his legacy.” p.45
“It just went to show, you never knew what you were going to feel until you felt it.” p. 75
“There was a lie at the heart of the camera, it implied the past was tangible when the very opposite was true.” p. 277
“Her memory was like lace, delicate and full of holes.” p. 306
“Reality itself was nothing. Words, everything was made out of words, once you lost the words you lost the world.” p. 329
