Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster

“Like if Icarus had hit puberty, and then couldn’t fly”

Overview: Mr. Vertigo tells the story of Walter Claireborne Rawley, in short Walt. He is a neglected orphan dwelling on the streets of St. Louis. Master Yehudi takes the boy to a lone house in the countryside to teach Walt how to fly. Throughout the story, they encounter real-life dangers like the Ku Klux Klan and the Chicago Mob.

This book is really interesting, as it’s told in the first person, and it’s clear that the narrator is recounting the story of his (fictional) life.

Mr. Vertigo is a truly wonderful tale; one that, in its depth of cultural relevance and commentary, reads more like a piece of allegorical history than fiction at all. Even the most fantastic moments come off completely real, and even more painfully so because of the weight with which they are written.

There's a sense of magic here and with that, of course, is always a suspension of disbelief, but there is also a sense of a lifetime portrayed and Auster manages to show the grief and pain of hatred and racism, the feeling of loss of love and life, and losing those you care about all in the mix with such lively memorable characters that one finds immensely likable. It's quite amazing that he could do this all so well and keep the novel just shy of 300 pages, but that's exactly what he does. It's a contained sort of epic, but nonetheless quite intriguing and heartfelt throughout.

There’s also some great quotes:

"Kansas is an illusion," He said one morning as he scraped away at his invisible beard, "a stopping place on the road to reality."

“I'm not going to apologize for things that need no apology. I did what I had to do, and it took as long as it had to take. Now a new chapter begins. The demons have fled, and the dark night of the soul is over."