Chad Taylor — Electric

Jonathan Cape 2003 Paperback, 256pp. 'People with tired faces have always interested me.' It's the middle of February and all over Auckland the lights are going out. The power lines are down, traffic's gridlocked - the hottest summer on record's going to be too much for a city that's reaching the end of the line. Samuel Usher has already been there. Now he's a data-retrieval specialist: a broken man working on broken machines, resurrecting other people's pasts while he tries to forget his own. He's drinking too much, taking too many drugs - trying to lead a normal life. Until he meets Candy and Jules, two drifting mathematicians who make their livings playing games with reality. Each is after a Holy Grail, the one perfect theory that will make their worlds complete. They've been together for five years now, but neither is getting any closer to their goal. Things are simpler for Sam - he just wants Candy, and her perfect skin. And for a while, it looks as if he may have what he wants. Then Jules is found in a coma, and Candy disappears. All Sam's left with is a strange list of numbers and three words: ANYWAY FREEDOM GOODBYE. In Chad Taylor's remarkable new novel, Sam's pursuit of the truth will lead him into an underworld of chaos and turbulence, where numbers rule and love and friendship collides. Intense, poetic, darkly funny - ELECTRIC is the perfect noir for a new generation. (ISBN: 9780224069267). Good.