Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt, #1)

by Sara Gran

• ISBN10: 0547428499
• ISBN13: 9780547428499
• Publish Date: 2 June 2011 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 28 June 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Houghton Mifflin
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 273
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

It’s magical realism does hardboiled noir with a tinge of southern gothic by way of Brooklyn. A low rating makes it seem like I missed what Gran was doing, and maybe I did. There’s the unreliable narrator and the meta-commentary on mystery/mysticism and how it’s a deconstruction of but also a love letter to the genre of noir and Phillip Marlowe— all that I get. But so much of the book would only make sense if Claire were in a straitjacket in Utah and this was happening in her mind, to the point where I would not have been surprised if that was the reveal. The actual ending (not who did it and why, that’s telegraphed for half the book before Claire has a revelation) is so out of sync with the rest of the book that the fever dream seems more plausible.

Bottom line: a read that’s more quick and fun than I’ve made it sound. Gran should trust her readers more. I’m too spoiled by Lou Berney. I wish it had surprised me, with its characters if not with the mystery.