One of the best (and somewhat dangerous) aspects of working at the library is in seeing what's new. I was checking in new books on Saturday when I noticed J. Robert Lennon's new novel Castle. I'd read someone's blog about this book, but can't for the life of me remember where. I read the jacket flap and decided that I'd have to put John Crowley's Four Freedoms (good as it is) on hold for a few days.
Eric Loesch, a man in his 50s, returns to the upstate New York town he grew up in and buys some land. Quite a bit of land - over 600 acres. He hasn't been home in quite awhile, so many of the locals don't recognize him. Very soon you start getting a weird feeling, almost one of foreboding. Something's going to happen, but you're not sure what. Nothing overtly weird is going on, but a few things that are mildly unsettling.
Then Loesch discovers something odd. There's a small parcel of land in the middle of his woods that belongs to someone else. The problem is that in all of the legal papers concerning that plot of land, the owner's name has been blackened out.
I'm only about 45 pages into Castle, but it's creeping me out in a very subtle way. I've never read J. Robert Lennon before, so I hope this is an author I can return to. I'll keep you posted.
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