Title: Panopticon
Author: David Bajo
345 pages
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Buy The Book: Amazon
Summary:
As the California borderland newspaper where they work prepares to close, three reporters are oddly given assignments to return to stories they’ve covered before—each one surprisingly personal. The first assignment takes reporter Aaron Klinsman and photographer Rita Valdez to an abandoned motel room where the mirrors are draped with towels, bits of black tape cover the doorknobs, and the perfect trace of a woman’s body is imprinted on the bed sheets. From this sexually charged beginning—on land his family used to own—Klinsman, Rita, and their colleague, Oscar Medem understand that they are supposed to uncover something. They just don’t know what.
Following the moonlit paths their assignments reveal through the bars, factories and complex streets of Tijuana and Otay, haunted by the femicides that have spread westward from Juarez, the reporters become more intimately entwined. Tracing the images they uncover, and those they cause and leave behind, they soon realize that every move they make is under surveillance. Beyond this, it seems their private lives and even their memories are being reconstructed by others.
Panopticon is a novel of dreamlike appearances and almost supernatural memories, a world of hidden watchers that evokes the dark recognition of just how little we can protect even our most private moments. It is a shadowy, erotic novel only slightly speculative that opens into the world we all now occupy. (Summary provided by Unbridled Books.)
My Thoughts:
Regular readers will remember that I recently reviewed another Unbridled Books title, the excellent Safe From The Sea by Peter Geye. Now I am finding myself singing the praises of yet another Unbridled Books title, Panopticon by David Bajo. Bajo’s novel about violence and voyeurism in the California borderlands at times evokes Cormac McCarthy’s tale of Texan border violence in No Country For Old Men. At other times however…there is nothing else that can possibly compare to it. The story is so innovative, original and complicated that I have a hard time even explaining the plot to my friends. But I keep trying to because I liked the book THAT MUCH.
Throughout the novel Bajo’s depiction of Aaron Klinsman’s battle with insomnia while struggling to make the connection between his stories, his coworker’s stories and the murders of over a hundred women in the California borderlands haunts the reader. Klinsman’s tale is told through sleepy eyes and sleepy eyes have a habit of not being able to decipher reality from dreams. So, it is no surprise that Klinsman’s insomnia lends a dreamlike quality to the novel. This had an interesting effect on me as a reader. The first half of the book because of Klinsman’s insomnia read like a puzzle. When everything came together for me towards the middle of the book I felt like screaming, “eureka”! But I didn’t actually scream that because I was so spooked by the voyeur storyline.
There is so much that I want to say about this book, but I feel like I would give too much of the plot away. I want to tell all of you about the “mozos” and their “vidas,” but I can’t. It would simply give away too much. I don’t want to take away the satisfaction of solving the mysteries that seem to be everywhere like jewels in this wonderful novel. So just take this advice: Read Panopticon. You won’t regret it.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Unbridled has excellent books. I have a few that I need to get to before finally reading anything else – Safe From The Sea is on the top of the list! Really surprised by the goodness they have.