The Town That Forgot How To Breathe
by Kenneth J. Harvey

Read September 2007
Copy borrowed from Ramsey County Public Library, White Bear Lake branch
Essay written January 13th, 2008

Beautiful cover. One of the best book covers of any book I read all year, I'm sure. I can't describe it. Go look it up. I think it may even been designed by Chip Kidd. Can't remember. An obviously I returned it months ago, so I can't just look at the dust jacket right now. And I wouldn't know where to look for book cover design credit information online, even if my internet connection was working right now.

It started off being way awesome. Terribly creepy, which I liked. So creepy that at first I wouldn't allow myself to read it at night, because my active imagination troubles me at times. But after the first hundred pages or so it got leveled out and I was too busy trying to figure out what in the hootie-hoo was going on to worry about being freaked out. I still don't quite think I understood everything. There were an awful lot of narrative threads, and I think a few of them didn't get tied up at the end.

Newfoundland is beautiful. And its quirky inhabitants make it even more so. This did a good job of capturing that. I've been there, although only to the big city (St. John's). It brought me back. I was kind of surprised there wasn't any reference to Newfoundland Screech rum. In fact, I don't remember there being much alcohol at all, which doesn't seem very Newfoundlanderish to me. All the Newfs I knew were sots.

If you want a better Newfoundland book, reading The Shipping News. If you want a better horror story, read something else in that genre. I'm not much of a horror reader, so I can't really recommend anything.

UPDATE, TEN MINUTES LATER: The book jacket was not designed by Chip Kidd. The jacket for Death Of A Murderer by Rupert Thomson was designed by Chip Kidd. And the cover for The Town That Forgot How To Breathe is still better. The best of the year.

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