Communion Town

Sam Thompson’s debut, a novel of stories set in enigmatic Communion Town, landed a coveted spot on the Man Booker longlist. Like David Mitchell and Italo Calvino, Thompson has some fun trying out literary styles. One chapter is written as a noir-ish caper, another as a futuristic romance, another follows a serial killer, and there’s even a lovely childhood fable with notes of magical realism. The cumulative effect is of a world simultaneously revealed and obscured: just when you’ve gotten a grip on Communion Town, it’s transformed. Thompson’s sentences are graceful enough that he mostly pulls off these crafty fireworks—at least when it comes to miming a style. But too often, exhilarating sentences (like one describing the sea as “full of the movements of an anticipatory audience, rustling programs, shushing itself...”) are buried in descriptive layers that deaden an entire page. In the opening story, a dramatic event is obliquely mentioned over and over in the span of 20 pages. When the action is revealed, it hardly seems worth the wait. Thompson is a talented writer with a seemingly boundless interest in language and its potential; one can’t help but wish that he applied some of his energy to getting to the point. (Dec.)