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Taylor Greene was the kind of young man who would have made a difference in the world if he had lived long enough. As it was, his suicide improved life dramatically for several other people, among them a man by the name of Dane Rudd, who received Taylor's corneas. Dane shows up at a memorial for Taylor as a way to express his gratitude and promptly becomes involved in the lives of his family, friends and associates, both good and bad. Several characters are introduced into the narrative at a rapid fire pace as the book opens. Each of them has an element of secrecy about them, a sense that they are hiding things from the view of others, both personally and professionally. The sheer number of characters as well as the fact that they are presented in a cloaked manner leads to some confusion. As the reader works their way through the book, some of what is going on becomes clear; much of it remains murky. The bottom line is that Taylor was probably murdered. Dane is a bit of an enigma himself. The reader knows that he is not entirely open and honest, as we hear his conversations with an unidentified person. It would appear that he has his own agenda and is attempting to schmooze his way into the inner circle of depravity that exists in Taylor's world. As he does so, he finds himself becoming involved with Taylor's former fiancée, a woman by the name of Essie. At a crucial moment in the story, Rudd informs Essie about everything that he is, but that remains unknown to the reader. The book twisted and turned its way along until it reached its highly dramatic close. It was a difficult read for several reasons. First of all, Teran follows the Kangaroo school of writing‹he hops on one narrative thread, over to another, over to another, back to the first‹often in revelations of only a few sentences before he moves on. That makes it difficult to follow the course of events and sustain interest in any individual thread. Secondly, and more importantly, is the way in which the narrative is written. Teran employs an overblown prose style intermingled with moral platitudes and conundrums. Whenever I came across these passages (which was often), I had to stop and try to figure out what on earth he was saying. I gave up on that after a while and skipped anything that smelled of artsy-fartsy writing. The book had the potential to be so much more, if only it had been written in a more straightforward fashion. Teran has a fondness for extremes in both his characters and his plotting, and that could have been counterbalanced by using a more direct writing style. As far as I was concerned, the prince of deadly weapons was firing blanks.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, December 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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