Not long ago I read in Samuel R. Delany's book About Writing that writers should use first person POV only if the narrator is unusually interesting. I think it's pretty safe to say that Elizabeth Hand understands that: Cass Neary is one of the most unforgettable narrators I've come across recently.
She's also one of the most self-destructive personalities I've ever encountered in fiction. Cass was part of the 70's punk scene in New York, a photographer who liked to take pictures of people who were either dead or rapidly on the way to being dead. She even landed a book deal, but thirty years of drugs, booze, unchallenging jobs and self-destructive habits have left her with very little.
An old friend sends Cass on a "mercy gig" to Paswegas Island, off the coast of Maine to interview a reclusive photographer. Having no better options, Cass takes the job.
What Cass finds is a completely different culture (and subculture) from the one she's known, filled with strange locals, unexplained disappearances, the remnants of a 60's commune, and open hostility towards people "from away."
Generation Loss is not just a very good mystery, it's more importantly an examination of what frustrates Cass (and all artists): the sense of loss encountered in realizing that for years, even decades, that your life has failed to produce anything even approaching greatness. The pain of that realization is tremendous and it's something Cass knows well before she sets foot on Paswegas Island. Her time there only intensifies it as she comes to learn about the local disappearances, the reclusive photographer and herself.
This is one of those rare books that, when forced to stop reading for whatever reason, I'm constantly thinking about. When you have a reading experience like that, you wish it could go on forever. Those experiences are few and far between, but it's a great way to start off the new year.
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