Product Description

One morning in the park James Sim discovers a man, crumpled on the ground, stabbed in the chest. In the man's last breath, he whispers his confession: Samedi.

What follows is a spellbinding game of cat and mouse as James is abducted, brought to an asylum, and seduced by a woman in yellow. Who is lying? What is Samedi? And what will happen on the seventh day?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63396 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-04
• Released on: 2007-09-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Unspecified cataclysm threatens in this unconventional debut spy fable from poet Ball. As mysterious suicides are staged daily on the White House lawn, James Sim, a loner and professional mnemonist (someone who can memorize large amounts of data), comes upon a man stabbed in a park. The man's dying words cast light on garbled notes left by the White House suicides that threaten something very big and very bad in seven days' time. Following the dead man's clues (over seven days in as many chapters), Sim cracks ciphers, explores hidden passages of a fictional, labyrinth-like verisylum and struggles to find a straight answer about Samedi, the figure seemingly at the center of the matter. The suicides continue, and the only good advice comes from female pickpocket Grieve, who goes by false names, spies on Sim and falls for him. There are flashbacks to conversations with Sim's childhood imaginary friend (an invisible red owl named Ansilon) and a detailed, history of the fictional 18th-century inventor of the verisylum. Ball writes scenes that read like prose poetry and cultivates a Beckett-like alienated digression rather than standard plot mechanics. The results are highly imaginative but hard going. (Sept.)
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Review
“A strange modern thriller--Kafka meets Hitchcock--laden with questions about truth, identity, memory, and the importance of names, a story that casts an unsettling spell.”
—Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child

“Like a tale by Lewis Carroll or a film by David Lynch, Samedi the Deafness teeters on the edge of unreality, plunges right in, and comes back again full circle. From its labyrinth of fictions, through the doubling and deceptive mirrors lining its walls and corridors, spills the eerie glow of some strange, ineffable truth.”
—Tom McCarthy, author of Remainder

“Samedi the Deafness is an urgent book . . . trying intently to tell us something about our world and our way of living, and it challenges us to listen. No serious reader can refuse this challenge.”
—Paul La Farge, author of Haussmann, or the Distinction


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Review
“A strange modern thriller--Kafka meets Hitchcock--laden with questions about truth, identity, memory, and the importance of names, a story that casts an unsettling spell.”
—Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child

“Like a tale by Lewis Carroll or a film by David Lynch, Samedi the Deafness teeters on the edge of unreality, plunges right in, and comes back again full circle. From its labyrinth of fictions, through the doubling and deceptive mirrors lining its walls and corridors, spills the eerie glow of some strange, ineffable truth.”
—Tom McCarthy, author of Remainder

“Samedi the Deafness is an urgent book . . . trying intently to tell us something about our world and our way of living, and it challenges us to listen. No serious reader can refuse this challenge.”
—Paul La Farge, author of Haussmann, or the Distinction

Customer Reviews

There are seven days, there are seven days....
There are seven days in a week
Sunday, Monday
Tuesday, Wednesday
Thursday, Friday
Saturday*

*(popular children's ditty)

This is a strange book
Unreal
The writing style can be disjointed
Yet strangely poetic
And you can't put it down
For fear you miss something
But still
It's weird

Set over a seven day period
There's no prize for guessing
That it ends on
Saturday

The hero's name is James
James is a mnemonist
Which means he can remember lots of stuff
In a very short time
Which you will agree is pretty weird
But then things get weirder
When he comes across a man
With stab wounds
Who dies

Then there be suicides
And James is kidnapped
And taken to a verisylum
Which is where they treat chronic liars
If you can believe that

But then it gets more interesting

The building is like a maze
With rules that would delight Lewis Carroll
And people have more than one name
Except for those whose names are the same
And he falls in love
And out of love
And in again
And he learns that he can't trust anybody
Obviously

The tension builds
As the author skillfully creates
His vision
Of what's going to happen
On Saturday

Dark and strange
Read this is you're looking for something
Different
Weird
And twisted



Amanda Richards, May 10, 2008

Strange world of Samedi makes for intriguing reading...
After reading a review of Jesse Ball's premiere work "Samedi the Deafness," one quickly concludes that they are encountering a unique new talent with the potential to produce even more surprising works of prose in the future.

That expectation does not mean that the present work is not strikingly original in its own right - only that one gets the sense that there is more where that came from...a very encouraging prospect.

"Samedi the Deafness" is a difficult work to categorize, containing a myriad of poetic phrases sprinkled throughout the choppy, occasionally disjointed sentences and paragraphs. Some pages contain only one line, while others are formatted to reveal the dialogue among characters. It is an interesting construct that stops being a distraction after the first chapter and gives the novel a sort of lyrical cadence all its own.

The plot can be a bit difficult to track sometimes, existing as a silver thread woven throughout the dreamlike descriptions of the locations and characters surrounding the narrator. Any detailed summary would reveal too much; suffice to say, the narrator happens upon a dying man in a park who informs him with his dying breaths that the world is in danger from the foreboding character of Samedi and that he must be stopped.

As a result of this chance encounter, the narrator enters a swirling vortex of pathological liars and hidden motives, housed within the labarynthine halls of a mental institution. It is an odd trip to be sure, but the pay off is a good one.

When Samedi's ultimate plan is revealed, it's haunting ramifications echo the postmodern masterwork, "Blindness," by Jose Saramago. This is fine company indeed.

"Samedi the Deafness" is an original and thought-provoking read best suited for those who don't mind being challenged by their fiction. It is a work well worth trying for yourself.

- S.

Be prepared to be surprised often
On a Sunday morning in a Washington park, James Sim - loner and professional mnemonist (someone who can memorize large amounts of data) - is witness to the aftermath of a stabbing. With his dying breath, Thomas McHale tells James: "I was one of them, but I left, and they didn't want me to leave. Have you seen the paper? Samedi? The conspirators? I was one of them...You must do it. You must expose them." The "them" in question is a group of individuals who commit suicide in front of the White House, one each day, all bearing a message from Samedi of doom to come on the seventh day.

McHale leaves James with a few clues; however, he is loath to get involved until a chance encounter with a young woman spurs him to action. James sets off to follow the dead man's clues and, in the process, ends up a prisoner in an asylum for liars. As he searches for truth amidst the lies, James struggles to find out who Samedi is and what will happen on the seventh day.

Samedi the Deafness is the very strange novel from poet Jesse Ball. As he states in an interview, "Samedi is an investigation of lies and responsibility." Despite this clear statement of intent, and being incredibly easy to read, reality is quickly undermined in Samedi. This is a novel which will frustrate, confound and challenge readers, who will quickly feel as if they've fallen down the rabbit hole, into a David Lynch film where political commentary is provided by Hunter S. Thompson.

The character of Samedi has direct ties to "Baron Samedi," the all-knowing loa of death from the Voodoo tradition, known for disruption, obscenity, debauchery. It should come as no surprise that Ball has chosen to take that disruption and undermine the very concept of the novel.

This is not a comfortable read, just when the reader is sure they've understand what is happening, Ball flips the tables. His underlining message is vital; readers who choose to fall into his dream world will find unexpected and important rewards hidden within.

Armchair Interviews says: The author turns the table on the unsuspecting reader.