I’m a writer who makes a living mostly by editing, and to my longtime Goodreads friends it’s probably obvious that I don’t read like a civilian. That said, I’m going one step further in my response to Land of the Blind, my seventh Jess Walter book, by gushing and delighting in a way that is generally shared only in writers’ private conversations.Lots of novelists aspire to make money and very few succeed. Some of the few who make a living garner success with formulaic works, which are really th...

Land of the Blind was not a fun read. Clark, the main character reveals in tortuous detail his adolescence . Walter's characters always seem to come from the seamy side of Spokane. He writes with so much pathos and detail, it can't all be imagined pain.Clark begins this novel confessing to crimes, real and unnamed. He suffers as he unloads the pain of success , failure, loyalty, treason, love and detachment. His patch does not blind him. It only gives a lack of depth perception.As I said, this w...

Most sequels are similar in style to their predecessor, but Land of the Blind is stylistically very different from Over Tumbled Graves. I don't know if Walter's book deal at that point was dependent on this second novel being a sequel, but it seems to me that's not what he wanted to write and the novel suffers a bit from stretching to be a detective mystery involving Caroline Mabry.I really liked Caroline in OTG, where she was a central figure. Here she's just hanging on to the periphery of the

Jess Walter has accomplished something rare with Land of the Blind. He has followed up his stellar debut detective novel, Over Tumbled Graves with an equally stellar sequel told in an entirely different way. While OTG was a straightforward, 3rd-person omniscient literary thriller with loads of hardcore detective work and all the other conventions of the genre, LotB was more of an epistolary novel, telling the story of the crimes, committed or only conceived, through a series of handwritten confe...

Not my favorite by Mr. Walter, but an excellent read none-the-less. This is a follow-up to his novel Over Tumbled Graves and as different from that one as night is to day. Basically they both share a main character; otherwise the tale and the way it's told are nothing alike.Spokane is once again a focus. It reminds me sometimes of the area in which I grew up near Beaumont, Texas. Another mid-sized town in a 50 year recession, full of hopeless optimism and a never-ending supply of excuses for fai...

Jess Walter is such a pleasure to read! I've been going through his novels kind of in reverse order. This was one of his first, and it mixes crime and literary fiction in a unique way. As with his others, there are moments of excruciatingly hilarious and painful depictions of how we behave in our youth or in love or under the influence of other inflammatory factors. This especially resonates with how it feels to survive childhood among bullies and pecking orders: the terror and humiliation, the

I read this for fun in college several years ago (yay opl new books section)and still remember being utterly refreshed by the originality of the work. One of those I just happened to pick up on my own, which reminds me that I should do that more often! Still my favorite of his books, especially the last third of it where it all gets weird and the tension is so intricately built.

Like the first Caroline Mabry book, this one is a wild variation on the standard detective novel, completely different in form and interest from the first one. Here we have a self-confessed killer writing his memoir-confession in alternate chapters with Mabry investigating what might be going on at the present. A body is not discovered until 3/4 of the way through the book. And as in the first novel, this one is full of vivid observation, smart personal insight, and unexpected plotting.

I love Jess Walter, as I said in other reviews I believe he is a notch above most other contemporary writers. Here is a great comment about "Land of the Blind" by the author himself: "I wanted to write a darkly comic and suspenseful coming-of-age crime novel about politics, philosophy, the tech bubble, and the way people drag their teenage selves through the rest of our lives. And like a beginning juggler who has tentatively tossed an apple, a chainsaw, and two bowling pins in the air, and is no...

It’s a goal of mine to scare up votes for Jess Walter’s induction into the Pantheon of Great American Storytellers. Land of the Blind justifies his nomination. [Citizen Vince (see review) does even more so.] He’s never slow, he adds insights without overdoing it, his dialogue is bang on, and his plots keep Kindle screens refreshing incessantly. I like his style, too – kind of edgy, but with a genuine regard for his characters. If you were to shoehorn this one into a category, I guess it would be...

It just doesn’t get any better than when Jess Walter tells a story, and Land of the Blind, his second novel featuring Spokane Detective Caroline Mabry, is yet another sterling example of Walter’s creative genius—a book that is worthy of a five star rating. The first big star speaks to the quality of the structure—an innovative approach that alternates between two narratives, each imbued with a voice that is as unique as it is engaging. Initial, and then rotating, chapters are told in third perso...

I write books for a living. I edit books. I publish books. I =live= books. But I rarely find myself impressed by books.I'm impressed enough with Jess Walter to read his books. Now I find myself impressed enough with Land of the Blind to get off my jaded butt to recommend it to anyone who was ever teased in school, or bullied, or humiliated, or moved by the fear of any of the above to act against his better nature.This is a book written in pain; it is painful to read, painful to relive personal m...

The book is tough going in the first half because the subject is bullying and it is harsh to read. Eli is an extremely bullied kid because he has everything wrong with him that can be wrong with someone and yet be fit enough for public school mainstreaming while still needing two special-ed classes as well - he smells, he wears ugly glasses, he's both physically and mentally handicapped, and he lives in a spiritless deadened large town. Clark, one of the narrators, is also bullied, but not as ba...

In Land of the Blind, Jess Walter has written a dolorous thriller about a man who wants police detective Caroline Mabry to witness his confession to a crime that has yet to be reported. With legal paper in hand, Clark Mason proceeds to write a long story of a childhood friendship gone horribly wrong—a "story of weakness, not of strength"—one in which he alternately befriends and betrays oddball Eli Boyle. Years later, Eli agrees to let Clark turn his recreational, hobby-like fantasy game, Empire...

Jess Walter does it again. I know this was written well before The Financial Lives of the Poets, but I read them out of order. But this, like Financial Lives, is a book that I must recommend.This book tells the life story of Clark Anthony Mason, an aspiring politician, hack-job lawyer, people pleaser, and identity-challenged individual. Clark goes to the police, namely Caroline Mabry, wanting to confess. He doesn't know how to go about it. Finally, he decides on confessing to murder through a lo...

Another excellent story from Jess Walter.. becoming one of my favorite authors. He knows how to spin an exciting tale for sure. The story begins with a murder confession, no body or identity, and the rest unspools from there!

In a serendipitous manner, “Land of the Blind” landed in my purview, and I’m glad it did. It is considered a mystery or detective story, but it is actually a first-rate novel. Since I have been exposed to Jess Walter, I plan to read his 2012 novel “Beautiful Ruins,” which Maureen Corrigan (NPR) called a “literary miracle.” I love women detectives and Caroline Mabry, a single 37-year old, was the perfect choice. She has been demoted to the swig shift in a Spokane police station where drunks and d...

Land Of The Blind has some interesting aspects to it, but it is not as satisfying as Jess Walter's debut, Over Tumbled Graves or his subsequent novel, Citizen Vince. A lot of the premise was too on the nose-too obviously taken from the headlines: dot com bubble frauds, local political races. Other aspects were too over the top, Clark becoming a millionaire and the utter helplessness and afflictions of Eli. It has the makings of a compelling mystery, but the execution seemed somewhat marred by in...

Jess Walter is a stylistic chameleon. He can do Don Delillo type post-modern paranoia in "The Zero", true crime in "Ruby Ridge", short stories in "We Live in Water", humorous books that play around with the concept of the American dream and politics "Citizen Vince". I think he fumbled trying to do romantic comedy in "Beautiful Ruins" but I think I'm in the minority on that.In Land of the Blind he plays with two different genres at the same time. The book is the second book with detective Carolin...

I think I'd read anything Jess Walter wrote. I'm even considering the true crime stuff, and that's not really my scene. This is an early work of Walter's, and though it's not quite up there with the amazing Citizen Vince, it certainly shows the promise that would be fulfilled in subsequent works.One of the proofs for me that a writer is worth paying attention to is when they can tell you a story that you don't think you'll be interested in and suck you in anyway. I was drawn right in by the dete...