Peace by Gene Wolfe

Peace by Gene Wolfe is a per­verse fic­tion­al fic­tion­al mem­oir writ­ten from the point of view of a maybe senile maybe stroke vic­tim named Alden Den­nis Weer. Def­i­nite­ly an untrust­wor­thy nar­ra­tor. This book is real­ly fuck­ing dis­turb­ing. At no point are you sure where or when the actu­al nar­ra­tor exists. Since it is a mem­oir, it is very pos­si­ble that the entire book takes place dur­ing the afore­men­tioned stroke as a sort of extend­ed life-flash­ing-before-the-eyes mon­tage. But there are hints that the mem­oir even con­tin­ues after the death of the nar­ra­tor. Basi­cal­ly the only things approx­i­mat­ing sub­stance that we ever get are hints. There are hints that Mr. Weer is a seri­ous­ly evil man, a socio­path­ic mass-mur­der­er, and more hints of rape and child molesta­tion [Mr. Weer being the one molest­ed, although he does pork a 16 year old who offers her­self as a sort of bribe to him] as well. The upshot of the nov­el is that you real­ly don’t ever know what the fuck is going on, apart from the fact that you know some­thing is going on that Mr. Weer does­n’t want to talk about.

Apart from that the book is also filled with nos­tal­gia and regret; tak­ing place in the ear­ly 20th Cen­tur­ty Mid­west and going from kerosene to tele­vi­sion. A regret for the loss of inno­cence that is like­ly mir­rored in Weer’s own dis­turb­ing life. There are con­stant ref­er­ences to death, iso­la­tion, abnor­mal­i­ty. It reads like a book an out­sider artist might write, which is tes­ta­ment to the skill of Mr. Wolfe, since Weer who is writ­ing the book is an out­sider in his own home­town. It’s no won­der that this book is appar­ent­ly one of Neil Gaiman’s favorites. I def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend read­ing it. I’d appre­ci­ate hav­ing some­one to talk to about it.