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Found Audio
For the first time ever, Found Audio presents a complete transcription of the unsettling audio recordings of a mysterious unnamed adventure journalist and his decades-long pursuit of the Borgesian "City of Dreams," alongside analysis from audio expert, Amrapali Anna Singh.
144 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 11, 2017
52 people are currently reading
2092 people want to read
About the author
N.J. Campbell
2 books20 followersN.J. Campbell was born in the Midwest. He has won the Little Tokyo Short Story Contest, received accolades from the California State Legislature, and has been anthologized in the collection American Fiction from New Rivers Press. Found Audio is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 207 reviews
October 19, 2017
Admittedly, I'm way behind on writing reviews...but this book just didn't really stay with me. I was captivated by the style more than anything. It had a unique formal opening (an epistle written by an academic). And then thereafter became the transcript of an audio recording that the academic had transcribed. The audio recording was a long interview with a man telling a story about his life centered around inexplicable occurrences and a mythical "city of dreams."
The academic was an audio expert who had a near mystical ability to analyze audiotape recording. This opening letter seemed to be the justification for the author being able to include precise details in the audio transcript (such as the size of the room the recording took place in based on the echo in the background, or the types of buzz and hiss, etc.) It's almost like...he wrote the body of the story first then was told that he needed to justify the context for all the detail. It was well crafted but none-the-less struck me as contrived.
It is a quick, enjoyable read. But in the end, I found there wasn't much depth to the meaning behind the events. The theme of it all struck me as fortune-cookie deep, and overall, more style than substance.
The academic was an audio expert who had a near mystical ability to analyze audiotape recording. This opening letter seemed to be the justification for the author being able to include precise details in the audio transcript (such as the size of the room the recording took place in based on the echo in the background, or the types of buzz and hiss, etc.) It's almost like...he wrote the body of the story first then was told that he needed to justify the context for all the detail. It was well crafted but none-the-less struck me as contrived.
It is a quick, enjoyable read. But in the end, I found there wasn't much depth to the meaning behind the events. The theme of it all struck me as fortune-cookie deep, and overall, more style than substance.
September 13, 2017
Oh my goodness, this was such a fun read. I really can't help but love stories within stories. So basically, a mysterious man approaches an audio analyst with some tapes. He gives her a huge amount of money to transcribe them and learn what she can from them. She is explicitly told not to share this transcript with anybody. But, of course, she does and then she vanishes. All of this happens within the introduction, I swear I'm not spoiling anything. The vast majority of the book is the transcription, which follows an unnamed journalist telling his story of a bizarre and wildly implausible global hunt for a place called the City of Dreams - and it's great.
The set up was exactly what I wanted. Mysterious with people and locations that may or may not exist. People vanishing. And the manuscript itself contains all these wonderful little details about what's going on audibly apart from the monologue. I'm going to be honest, at first I didn't know if I was going to be able to get on board with the reading a monologue thing (even though every once in a while some other unnamed voices interrupt, which is so intriguing and unsettling). The writing made me a little nervous to begin with, but this dreamy, speculative story was exactly what I wanted. Found Audio is written like the fever dream of an incredibly adventurous travel writer. Once the book got to the second tape (of three) is when it really started to pick up for me. It takes a little while for the narrative to get to the point, which is to be expected considering it's a man telling a story and humans aren't always succinct (especially in this slightly psychedelic adventure context). By tape two, the City of Dreams is introduced and that's when it starts to get really crazy. I truly felt enraptured by the nameless main character's narrative. It's difficult not to get engrossed and just go along for the ride when the story is so confidently itself. By the end of it, I was deep in my own head about this search and what it could all mean. Little things I encounter in real life still make me think about this gem of a story, like the story has placed little mirages of itself into my reality, which is the most fun post-reading experience a person can have.
Full Review: Outlandish Lit :: Two Very Different Books You Can Read In One Day
The set up was exactly what I wanted. Mysterious with people and locations that may or may not exist. People vanishing. And the manuscript itself contains all these wonderful little details about what's going on audibly apart from the monologue. I'm going to be honest, at first I didn't know if I was going to be able to get on board with the reading a monologue thing (even though every once in a while some other unnamed voices interrupt, which is so intriguing and unsettling). The writing made me a little nervous to begin with, but this dreamy, speculative story was exactly what I wanted. Found Audio is written like the fever dream of an incredibly adventurous travel writer. Once the book got to the second tape (of three) is when it really started to pick up for me. It takes a little while for the narrative to get to the point, which is to be expected considering it's a man telling a story and humans aren't always succinct (especially in this slightly psychedelic adventure context). By tape two, the City of Dreams is introduced and that's when it starts to get really crazy. I truly felt enraptured by the nameless main character's narrative. It's difficult not to get engrossed and just go along for the ride when the story is so confidently itself. By the end of it, I was deep in my own head about this search and what it could all mean. Little things I encounter in real life still make me think about this gem of a story, like the story has placed little mirages of itself into my reality, which is the most fun post-reading experience a person can have.
Full Review: Outlandish Lit :: Two Very Different Books You Can Read In One Day
August 21, 2022
If you love meta novels about lost media – and I do, though I acknowledge it’s a bit of a niche – this is a must-read. I’d describe it as
The Witnesses Are Gone
meets The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas, with a detour via We Eat Our Own. It’s about a mysterious set of tapes, transcribed by an audio historian, with her manuscript, in turn, found and introduced by the author of this book, Campbell himself – the kind of layer-upon-layer, stories-within-stories framing that makes me excited about a story even when I’ve barely begun reading it. At the core of Found Audio is the tale of a journalist who becomes obsessed with finding something called ‘the City of Dreams’. His search takes him all over the world, from the last days of Kowloon Walled City to a chess tournament in Istanbul. It’s a sweeping, extremely propulsive adventure enlivened by a delicious element of uncertainty. For me, the potential scope of the plot was such that the book could have been much longer – twice, three times as long, even. And, all told, that isn’t a terrible problem to have with a book. Wish this wasn’t the author’s only novel!
TinyLetter | Linktree
TinyLetter | Linktree
March 10, 2022
From Plato to Calderón, Calvino to Borges, writers have often questioned the line of where realities & dreams cross, coexist, or even switch places.
I was completely sucked into this slightly enigmatic & compelling tale -- a modern entry of the fantastic prodding the boundaries of age-old philosophical ideas.
Fun & recommended.
I was completely sucked into this slightly enigmatic & compelling tale -- a modern entry of the fantastic prodding the boundaries of age-old philosophical ideas.
Fun & recommended.
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January 1, 2024I stumbled upon this while browsing Spotify’s audiobook section and fell into a gripping read that demanded my attention from its first minute until the very end.
Ambiguous in its storytelling and unique in its delivery, via the audiobook format, I had a fantastic time listening to the accounts of a man’s journey that left me with more questions than answers in a way that I greatly appreciate as a fan of surrealist media.
Ambiguous in its storytelling and unique in its delivery, via the audiobook format, I had a fantastic time listening to the accounts of a man’s journey that left me with more questions than answers in a way that I greatly appreciate as a fan of surrealist media.
February 27, 2017
Late in N.J. Campbell’s debut novel Found Audio, the narrator states, “weird is common, in a way.” The declaration is a thesis for this compelling, multi-layered novel that follows an unnamed adventure-journalist as he globetrots in search of the unexplained. We only hear from this adventurer via mysterious audiotapes, delivered by a strange man to a reclusive audio engineer. The engineer transcribes the tapes, and sends them to a lowly intern who’s then tasked with publishing the manuscript—presumably, the one we’re holding. It’s knotty and metafictional, and that’s half the fun. Everything in this novel is filtered through layers of mystery and intrigue. The clever structure casts doubt on the story, while the story itself questions the very definition of so-called reality. The total effect, to the delight of Vandermeer or Borges fans, is a fun and surreal mind trip.
August 8, 2017
Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0KWP...
House of Leaves sans the fear and quirks, via Lovecraft's dreamiest tales. On paper, it's perfect, and in fact there's lots to love here; some features of the novel (most notably the whole this-is-not-fiction effect) are a bit wobbly, but it's fast paced and keeps you turning pages. Can't wait to read Mr. Campbell's next effort.
House of Leaves sans the fear and quirks, via Lovecraft's dreamiest tales. On paper, it's perfect, and in fact there's lots to love here; some features of the novel (most notably the whole this-is-not-fiction effect) are a bit wobbly, but it's fast paced and keeps you turning pages. Can't wait to read Mr. Campbell's next effort.
February 16, 2017
Adventure journalism meets magical realism. The forensic audio ads another weird/interesting layer. Cinematic and quick. Recommended.
October 6, 2017
I had really high hopes for this book, but it fell very, very short for me. The idea was interesting, and I spent the first half of the book eagerly waiting for a twist or some action that was clearly just around the corner in this dreamscape of a novel. But once it became clear that there was nothing coming, that it really was essentially someone talking about his maybe/maybe not dreams (which, let's admit it, no one ever cares to hear about other people's dreams, much less read an entire book about them), it lost me.
The writing was definitely good, and again, the idea was very interesting. But it really lacked any kind of oomph. That lack of oomph made it very hard for me to believe in the suspense that the foreword and opening letter tried to build. The idea that anyone would go missing because of these tapes was completely unbelievable because they were just...dull.
I wish I had loved this novel, but in the end it was way too metaphysical and unresolved for my tastes.
The writing was definitely good, and again, the idea was very interesting. But it really lacked any kind of oomph. That lack of oomph made it very hard for me to believe in the suspense that the foreword and opening letter tried to build. The idea that anyone would go missing because of these tapes was completely unbelievable because they were just...dull.
I wish I had loved this novel, but in the end it was way too metaphysical and unresolved for my tastes.
September 18, 2021
2.5 with an extra half-star because it genuinely creeped me out. This is, shockingly, a case where the experimental style wasn't gimmicky enough -- the "audio" transcription read nothing like someone talking, so you had to just pretend you were reading a novel within a novel, which...the whole point of the book is that it's audio, so....idk. Not sure if the author didn't realize or thought that's how people talk, in which case he has very articulate friends.
Creepwise, this works on the level of Borges-weird (it's so Borgesian honestly -- and not in a good way, where you do something new with the influence; in a "oh I'm reading a bad version of Borges" way). Like, there's nothing actually terrifying going on, but the unsettling sense is creeping, and it's much more magic realist than cosmic horror.
Ultimately this is Borges mixed with wannabe-Foster-Wallace-hipster-MFA-boy, and the concept is cooler than the execution.
Creepwise, this works on the level of Borges-weird (it's so Borgesian honestly -- and not in a good way, where you do something new with the influence; in a "oh I'm reading a bad version of Borges" way). Like, there's nothing actually terrifying going on, but the unsettling sense is creeping, and it's much more magic realist than cosmic horror.
Ultimately this is Borges mixed with wannabe-Foster-Wallace-hipster-MFA-boy, and the concept is cooler than the execution.
November 21, 2019
The write up on Two Dollar Radio sounded phenomenal. Indiana Jones crossed with The X-Files. Right up my alley. The description sounded unique and intriguing, and the book was short enough to read in a day. So why’d it take over a month to finish? Basically because it’s everything except what’s advertised. Like trying to saw through a 2x4 with dental floss. It was slow-going and outright boring. The plot was disjointed and ultimately unconnected. The clincher comes in the afterword when the ostensible “transcriber” of the audio tape is talking about how he tried to get the “manuscript” published and he claims after his initial read through he found the manuscript unpublishable. Truer words could not be spoken. Meta fiction meets garbage.
November 14, 2017
I sat down to start this book, and suddenly it was three hours later, and the book was done, and I felt like a had a gaping hole in my head where my brain should have been.
This book was very weird, and sort of read like the ocean, in that things kept coming at me in waves, and I couldn't stop reading, but I was never totally sure what would happen next or even what I was reading, and suddenly it ended and i wanted way more, and wasn't quite sure if my world was the same or not. And it was 167 pages. I read it on my Kindle, so I wasn't sure about page count until I'd finished, but it was a fast read, very engaging.
This book was very weird, and sort of read like the ocean, in that things kept coming at me in waves, and I couldn't stop reading, but I was never totally sure what would happen next or even what I was reading, and suddenly it ended and i wanted way more, and wasn't quite sure if my world was the same or not. And it was 167 pages. I read it on my Kindle, so I wasn't sure about page count until I'd finished, but it was a fast read, very engaging.
January 28, 2019
I really enjoyed this. I have to admit the transcriber’s letter up front almost turned me off completely, but I figured I’d keep reading until I got to the actual transcripts, which were really interesting.
This isn’t the type of book I normally read, but I was really fascinated by the protagonist’s search for deeper meaning, and the places this search took him.
I felt like I was traveling around the globe with this guy as he explained his pursuit of knowledge, and the pursuit itself really resonated with me. I’m cleaning up and trying to take better care of myself this year, and in doing so I have come to believe there has to be something more, some higher purpose in this world. I’m not too keen on conventional spirituality, so this guy’s attempt to find meaning in odd, yet tangible, accessible places had me feeling like I could find meaning from the comfort of my living room if I so chose.
I’ll be checking out more from this publisher.
This isn’t the type of book I normally read, but I was really fascinated by the protagonist’s search for deeper meaning, and the places this search took him.
I felt like I was traveling around the globe with this guy as he explained his pursuit of knowledge, and the pursuit itself really resonated with me. I’m cleaning up and trying to take better care of myself this year, and in doing so I have come to believe there has to be something more, some higher purpose in this world. I’m not too keen on conventional spirituality, so this guy’s attempt to find meaning in odd, yet tangible, accessible places had me feeling like I could find meaning from the comfort of my living room if I so chose.
I’ll be checking out more from this publisher.
May 17, 2022
4 stars--I really liked it.
This is a very quiet book--audio tapes are received by an academic, there's a transcription of the tapes, then at the end (very briefly) an editor attempts to get the transcripts published. And not a lot happens in the tapes either; it's mostly the musing of a single voice, recollecting his adventures. Specifically, his gradual realization that perhaps the "real" world isn't really real.
I love found audio though (in both books and movies), and so this fast read was right up my alley.
This is a very quiet book--audio tapes are received by an academic, there's a transcription of the tapes, then at the end (very briefly) an editor attempts to get the transcripts published. And not a lot happens in the tapes either; it's mostly the musing of a single voice, recollecting his adventures. Specifically, his gradual realization that perhaps the "real" world isn't really real.
I love found audio though (in both books and movies), and so this fast read was right up my alley.
August 15, 2017
Really fun and imaginative- not like anything else - it has the courage of its indeterminacy.
July 21, 2017
Are You the Dreamer, or Are You the Dream?
If you are intrigued by this book, and you rightly should be, you should know what you're getting into. Here goes. (These are sort of structure and premise SPOILERS if you are sensitive to that, but not much more than the book's blurbs give away.)
We have at least three pieces in this Matryoshka, (Russian nesting doll). First, there is a mysterious frame that adds a touch of paranoia and suspense. It's really just an atmospheric gesture, but it's fun. The conceit is that this is a work of non-fiction masquerading as fiction in order to be publishable. We open with a foreword and then an epilogue from the "author", N.J. Campbell, who tells us that she is a lowly publisher's intern who saved the manuscript and undertook, at great personal risk, to have it published. I've loved transgressive "found" manuscripts ever since I read Huxley's "Ape and Essence" a million years ago, so this approach tells me we are in for some metafictional, metaphysical fun.
Within that frame we encounter a second frame. The story is a transcript taken from three mysterious audiotapes. The transcript was made by an expert in tape audio detection, and was made at the behest of a mysterious and slightly creepy stranger. At this point we learn a little about the provenance of the tapes. The expert opens the narrative with a long letter explaining the circumstances under which the transcript came to be. The expert also laces the transcript with notes and annotations about technical details and about what she has deduced about the tapes from barely detectable background sounds. This is a phenomenal example of faux-realistic pretend science, because the expert is precise, fussy, rather impressed with herself and a little showy. I don't know if there are such people or if this is even a real technical skill, but it didn't matter because it all just made the story both fun and a little creepy.
Finally, we get to the heart of the matter, which is basically an extended monologue by an unnamed adventure writer, who describes his search for "The City of Dreams". NO SPOILERS, but this part works wonderfully on many levels. This writer travels to a dozen exotic locales in his search and in each, (especially the Louisiana Bayou, Kowloon, and Mongolia), he has vivid yet dreamy adventures. Here is where attempts at comparison fail. There is certainly a touch of Borges. There is clearly a Confucian/Buddhist influence. The phony travelogue to non-existent places evokes Jan Morris' "Last Letters From Hav". I was reminded of Nicholas Christopher's brilliant "Veronica", which is another magical search book, though drawn from Tibetan Mysticism.
The upshot, though, is that our writer's mind wanders just as much as his body wanders, and among and through his dreams, his actual adventures, his imagined adventures, his totally untrustworthy memory, and his romantic unreliability we touch on love, desire, reality, consciousness, magical realism, real magic, and any number of other elegantly displayed topics. Since this is all wrapped up in lush and evocative travel writing it reads like the best actual head trip ever. It's not a sloppy or over-written head trip at all. The writing is tight and restrained, sometimes almost severe, which makes the occasional psychedelic scene all the more fun.
So, that's what you get here. This isn't a novella at 162 pages, but it's close, especially since it's three nested stories. And that works, because it's sort of like the book version of dessert, and it's awfully rich. This was a hoot and a very nice find.
(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
If you are intrigued by this book, and you rightly should be, you should know what you're getting into. Here goes. (These are sort of structure and premise SPOILERS if you are sensitive to that, but not much more than the book's blurbs give away.)
We have at least three pieces in this Matryoshka, (Russian nesting doll). First, there is a mysterious frame that adds a touch of paranoia and suspense. It's really just an atmospheric gesture, but it's fun. The conceit is that this is a work of non-fiction masquerading as fiction in order to be publishable. We open with a foreword and then an epilogue from the "author", N.J. Campbell, who tells us that she is a lowly publisher's intern who saved the manuscript and undertook, at great personal risk, to have it published. I've loved transgressive "found" manuscripts ever since I read Huxley's "Ape and Essence" a million years ago, so this approach tells me we are in for some metafictional, metaphysical fun.
Within that frame we encounter a second frame. The story is a transcript taken from three mysterious audiotapes. The transcript was made by an expert in tape audio detection, and was made at the behest of a mysterious and slightly creepy stranger. At this point we learn a little about the provenance of the tapes. The expert opens the narrative with a long letter explaining the circumstances under which the transcript came to be. The expert also laces the transcript with notes and annotations about technical details and about what she has deduced about the tapes from barely detectable background sounds. This is a phenomenal example of faux-realistic pretend science, because the expert is precise, fussy, rather impressed with herself and a little showy. I don't know if there are such people or if this is even a real technical skill, but it didn't matter because it all just made the story both fun and a little creepy.
Finally, we get to the heart of the matter, which is basically an extended monologue by an unnamed adventure writer, who describes his search for "The City of Dreams". NO SPOILERS, but this part works wonderfully on many levels. This writer travels to a dozen exotic locales in his search and in each, (especially the Louisiana Bayou, Kowloon, and Mongolia), he has vivid yet dreamy adventures. Here is where attempts at comparison fail. There is certainly a touch of Borges. There is clearly a Confucian/Buddhist influence. The phony travelogue to non-existent places evokes Jan Morris' "Last Letters From Hav". I was reminded of Nicholas Christopher's brilliant "Veronica", which is another magical search book, though drawn from Tibetan Mysticism.
The upshot, though, is that our writer's mind wanders just as much as his body wanders, and among and through his dreams, his actual adventures, his imagined adventures, his totally untrustworthy memory, and his romantic unreliability we touch on love, desire, reality, consciousness, magical realism, real magic, and any number of other elegantly displayed topics. Since this is all wrapped up in lush and evocative travel writing it reads like the best actual head trip ever. It's not a sloppy or over-written head trip at all. The writing is tight and restrained, sometimes almost severe, which makes the occasional psychedelic scene all the more fun.
So, that's what you get here. This isn't a novella at 162 pages, but it's close, especially since it's three nested stories. And that works, because it's sort of like the book version of dessert, and it's awfully rich. This was a hoot and a very nice find.
(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
August 18, 2017
I really enjoyed this. It checks off a number of items on my list of obsessions (mysterious audio recordings! unresolved dream-like sequences! ominous disappearances! etc) I hate to grumble in a 4-star review, but artifacts from the cassette transcription are only inserted occasionally into the narrative; I would have made them more crucial and disruptive elements.
February 27, 2018
I really disliked this book, I find no purpose for it and it was also boring . I kept expecting for a twist somewhere and that the story would take off from there but it never came , what we got is someone (we don’t know who) searching for a “city of dreams “ that might or might not exist, interviewing people who might or might not be real . Yep . Read at your own risk .
October 15, 2017
N.J. Campbell takes us around the world and through fascinating adventures in this short novel, where the main character tries to untangle himself from a mystery of a lost city.
Great concept, with some parts executed better than others. The overwhelming mystery of the story was fun, and the metafictional aspects were done well, but overall I needed more information about what was going on before I could really get into it. The short length also robbed us of a chance to really meet many of the characters or feel that there were real stakes at play. Most of the oddities were ignored as being part of the mystery, and I felt at times that the "man behind the curtain" aspect was used to cover up plot holes and ideas weren't fleshed out enough.
Along the same lines as Night Film, but with much less ambition and characterization.
One scene reminded me of @Seth, where a character was playing chess against five people at the same time – and won all the games! Just like Seth! Good times.
Great concept, with some parts executed better than others. The overwhelming mystery of the story was fun, and the metafictional aspects were done well, but overall I needed more information about what was going on before I could really get into it. The short length also robbed us of a chance to really meet many of the characters or feel that there were real stakes at play. Most of the oddities were ignored as being part of the mystery, and I felt at times that the "man behind the curtain" aspect was used to cover up plot holes and ideas weren't fleshed out enough.
Along the same lines as Night Film, but with much less ambition and characterization.
One scene reminded me of @Seth, where a character was playing chess against five people at the same time – and won all the games! Just like Seth! Good times.
November 16, 2017
This could maybe be a 2-star review for the intriguing parts at the beginning, but I came away with a solid feeling of dislike. There just isn't enough payoff to the "mystery" to satisfy me, and the mystery itself was not really what I was hoping for. I was kind of anticipating something more like Annihilation, where my skin was creeping with horror and I couldn't put it down. In Found Audio, nothing on the tapes really spoke to me as being out of this world, and The only mysterious part that I was legitimately interested in was who was making the recording, why, and why they were demanding full names and such. His monologue also came across as extremely unrealistic to me, it didn't sound like how people talk when they're rambling on about their memories from long ago. It sounded like how people write when they have a comfortable amount of time to do so and then go back and make revisions so it all sounds nice and cohesive.
I just don't much enjoy books that are made entirely of questions and no answers.
I just don't much enjoy books that are made entirely of questions and no answers.
August 19, 2018
Did not like this one bit, and probably wouldn't have finished it if it wasn't so short. Yes, it's weird fiction, but nowhere close to (say) Jeff VanderMeer or China Miéville. Most of the book consists of transcriptions of audio tapes, even though the prose style seems at times distinctly non-verbal. The "grand mystery" has very little depth, and there's a huge reliance on people of color to provide spiritual insight, mysticism, and enigmas galore.
January 17, 2019
When I was in high school, a friend of mine came home from college to work on his student film. Basically, a bunch of us had to pretend to dance slowly and artily in a room until the main character came in and asked "who are you?" Then, we all replied in a SUPER ARTSY, MIND-BLOWING monotone: "we are you."
That's basically this.
***
So here's what I mean. The general framing device -- mysterious tapes, confusing background noises, disappearances! -- is 100% up my alley. And the comparisons? Borges? Calvino? Yes.
But then the actual meat of the story is all vague, student-film "who are you? we are you." Dang it.
That's basically this.
***
So here's what I mean. The general framing device -- mysterious tapes, confusing background noises, disappearances! -- is 100% up my alley. And the comparisons? Borges? Calvino? Yes.
But then the actual meat of the story is all vague, student-film "who are you? we are you." Dang it.
February 22, 2019
Reading the metafictional Found Audio is akin to diving down an internet message board rabbit hole, seeking answers about an elusive urban legend. Sure, it left me with questions that I may just be able to shrug off tomorrow (despite some of the book's deeper existential elements), but the important part is that for the brief time I was "in" it, I found it completely engrossing and intriguing, even fun. 4.5/5.
January 7, 2021
As soon as I heard about this book, a Borgesian adventure with a modern twist, I knew that I had to read it.
The Groundwork of the Story
An Indian-American woman living in Alaska is a legend within her field for her brilliant ability to discern the most cryptic sounds in audio recordings. One day, a mysterious man appears in her office with a series of cassette tapes, and offers her a large amount of money to examine them. The tapes have a stamp from a library in Buenos Aires that possibly does not exist, their origins seemingly shrouded in mystery and even danger. As the woman listens to the tapes, she discovers that they are a chronicle by an adventure journalist, obsessed with discovering the lost "City of Dreams."
The novel begins with the audio technician laying the groundwork of the plot. After about a chapter of that, we move on to her transcription of the tapes, which lasts for the rest of the novel except for one more chapter at the end. At the beginning, I was worried that the transcribed, dialogue-only format of the book would throw me off, but I quickly got used to it. The narrator’s recorded speeches read just like the average book would in terms of format, written as someone recalling vivid memories and telling stories to their audience.
The story then begins - the story within a story, as the cassettes on which the story is recorded have a tale of their own.
The narrator of the cassette tapes is one person, save for a few interruptions of other unidentified voices. He is an unnamed adventure journalist who travels the world in search of unique stories, and his narration begins with him seeking a story that will become a tipping point in his life.
Otha: Legend of the Bayou
A friend informs him about a man who lives in the vast, wild swamplands of the Louisiana Bayou, a “snake bounty hunter,” possibly earning a living by hunting invasive species of snakes. If that doesn’t sound like a good story, I don’t know what does, and our journalist narrator agrees.
However, his inquiries end up becoming strange rabbit holes. Otha takes on a mythical, shadowy persona. No one knows anything, but everyone has heard things. He seems half wanted criminal, half magical being. It’s said that he was born in the swamp and has always lived there.
Years ago, the government seized Otha’s land, not realizing that anyone was living on it. When they discovered their mistake, they granted him some of the land - as long as he never hunted on it. But rumors swirled that he was doing just that. It sounded as if the government had forced him into an impossible situation - if he was as reclusive and integrated into the swamp as it sounded, how would he eat if he couldn’t hunt? A government employee, when pressed by the journalist about Otha’s alleged hunting crimes, says “There was an unofficial order to leave [him] alone, as any money spent on catching him was as good as money spent on catching unicorns.”
Of course, the intrigue surrounding Otha only serves to make the narrator even more determined to find him. He says: “At this point, I thought Otha sounded like the bayou version of Davy Crocket or Paul Bunyan - a hero of the swamp, fighting as an underdog against an oppressive system. He sounded like what he was - which was larger than life.”
I was a bit disappointed when, for all the “no one knows his location” buildup, the journalist ends up finding Otha quite easily, simply asking around in a random bar. Upon meeting Otha, he says: “When I walked into the diner, he was the only one in the room. I don’t mean that there weren’t other people there, but this man’s whole… presence, for lack of a better word, was magnetic.”
From there, we are given a strange and fascinating glimpse into Otha’s life. The journalist’s attempts to interview him all fail, despite paying him $1,000 for a story. During the afternoon and overnight “visit” with Otha, it becomes increasingly clear to the journalist and the reader that he is a man who simply cannot be summarized, or understood.
I had been a bit worried that all of the mythical hype surrounding Otha would not be lived up to in the writing, but the author certainly pulled off an enigmatic and memorable character. His cryptic replies to the narrator’s questions, or weighty silence, only seem to leave us with more questions and no answers.
And then there is the setting of the swamp itself - darkly beautiful, murky and atmospheric.
In the night, the journalist sees Otha kill a few snakes, one of which he tells us was “about 30 feet long.” The actual longest snake ever recorded in history was about 20 feet long.
Upon killing the first snake, Otha proclaims, “‘Dey come fo’ da blood. ‘Dey all come fo’ da blood.” The scene was ominous, especially paired with the vivid, darkly beautiful descriptions of the bayou at night.
In the morning, Otha laughs off the journalist’s questions about the snakes he killed, and says that the other man simply fell asleep, and has apparently dreamed up all of these imaginary snakes.
All evening, the journalist had been telling the reader that he suspected he had been drugged by Otha, since he felt that the passing of time was wrong (hours would go by, but the sun hadn’t moved in the sky), the temperature went up by about 15 degrees, he saw Otha walk through water without making the slightest ripple, he had difficulty breathing as if at very high altitude, and was seized with an overpowering sense of dread.
We are left to decide for ourselves whether the journalist was drugged or not. Perhaps he simply lost track of time. Or perhaps he is not a reliable narrator.
The journalist leaves Otha the next morning, disappointed at having gotten no story and no answers or sense of understanding of the man before him.
As he departs at the edge of the swamp, Otha tells him “‘Dare ain’t always an easy explanation of a life.” The journalist concludes this part of his tale with, “Not often is there a day that goes by where I don’t find myself trying to explain that life.”
The Mystery Deepens
At this point, we have also seen a few unidentified different voices interrupt the journalist a few times, and we are led to believe that he has been ordered to tell his story, seemingly with no choice in the matter. At one point, the journalist is harshly interrupted by a woman, who says, “This is a test. This is all a test.” Who is this journalist relaying this story to? Perhaps he is a prisoner of some sort?
Also at the end of the Otha portion of his tale, the voices are heard clinically assessing him, as if for medical records, giving his weight, height, and other such details.
By now, I was impressed and looking forward to unraveling this book’s mysteries. It was impossible to guess in which direction the author would take the story, which is always very exciting. And up until this point, absolutely every detail of the plot and every character seemed an unanswered puzzle.
Although I have just written extensively about the Otha scene, it was simply that: a mere scene in the book, only the beginning. That N.J. Campbell was able to write such a memorable setting and character, without needing much time for the setup, had me already musing that Found Audio could end up being a favorite book of the year.
The Book Becomes Disappointingly Lost in its Own Mysteriousness
I would not say that the book went downhill from there. But I was expecting the story to take off from the Otha starting point, and to give us more clues and little keys to unlocking the abstract mysteries along the way. Perhaps you could say that it did just that. But I felt that the book never really went anywhere with what it gave the reader.
That is not to say that the book flatlines into dullness, because there were still plenty of plot points to lure in the reader: how the journalist is forever haunted and changed by his failure to get a story out of Otha, and most notably, how he becomes obsessed with a new potential story that also seems doomed to impossibility: the City of Dreams.
Supposedly, and based entirely off of scattered conjecture, there is a lost city that is a physical place where dreams are lived out, and woven into real life. The descriptions of how exactly such a place would work are hazy, so I remained confused about this for the rest of the book - presumably because the journalist does not know himself, as well as to retain the sense of mystery.
The journalist becomes fixated on finding this city, even taking same-day flights to remote countries whenever he hears so much as an insubstantial whisper about a “City of Dreams.”
This is the plot that dominates the book, and what I suppose it is meant to be about.
Now, tracking down a legendary man living in uncharted swamplands was one thing. Never for a moment in that part of the book was I struck with skepticism and pulled out of the story. But a city made of dreams, that the author and the journalist purport to be real, a physical place that really exists and can be traveled to - maybe? Or maybe not?
I was ready to be convinced. I was ready for Campbell to win me over and make me believe it. To make me yearn for our adventurous main character to find the city, and triumphantly prove the naysayers wrong. Unfortunately, that never happened.
Instead, I found myself agreeing with the journalist’s concerned friends who told him that he was experiencing a psychotic break, or trauma, hallucinating, or had taken drugs. And even before that, I just couldn’t even begin to believe in this dream city.
The character’s experiences while trying to find the place were so strange and vague, and not in a good way. I wasn’t enjoying this turn in the plot, or intrigued anymore. It seemed so far fetched. Even the way that the journalist heard about the city from a friend and immediately, just like that, was irrevocably obsessed and believed in it, left me dubious.
Although the book continued whisking us off to faraway settings as the narrator’s search expands across the globe, I had lost my sense of fascinated mystery with this book. I simply couldn’t care about this City of Dreams, or the search for it, because I couldn’t relate to it or see how it could be real.
I began wondering if the entire book was meant to be a trippy drug hallucination story - that’s how unconvincing it all was.
100% Mysterious, 0% Explanation
At this point, I was simply looking forward to finishing the book, and to seeing if the author would pull off some shocking twist in explaining the mystery of the casette tapes, and the identities of the interrogators who were demanding the narrator’s story.
However, the author had reminded us so little of that aspect of the plot, it wasn’t even of that much interest to me anymore. I was quite sure that I wouldn’t care about the answer, whatever it was going to be.
As it turned out, that assumption was incorrect. Because I was given no answer or mystery-solving revelation to care about, or to not care about.
Found Audio ended up being frustratingly 100% mysterious, but 0% explanation.
In another book, I could see this working. I would even say that I might be able to read this book again, ready for the lack of reveal, and be okay with it, recalling Otha's parting words: “‘Dare ain’t always an easy explanation of a life.” That is a very strong might, though, because I don't feel that this book has the complexity or depth to pull it off.
The book ends with little to nothing being wrapped up. There seemed to have been so many missed opportunities. For example, the man who appears out of the blue at the audio technician’s doorstep with the tapes - soon enough revealed to be a pretty conclusively dangerous individual, an international criminal - the people who defy him given to disappearing. And yet, he is not even a character in the story, never focused on, never given any significant stake in the plot, and in the end left to dwindle off, never brought up again. This was the way with so many of the plot points.
Even the story-within-a-story, which was definitely one of the things that I was most excited for about this book, ended up fizzling out into nothing. You could easily have cut out the first and last chapters (the only ones about the cassettes, and not comprised of the journalist's narrative), and the book would have been basically the same, save for the detail that it was recorded onto a tape that some people didn't want getting out, for no reason that we can discern.
Despite the strong start, in the end this book ended up getting lost and weighed down in the mire of its own mystery, severing the thread of my interest in the story and the outcome (a nonexistent outcome, it turned out, so perhaps that was for the best).
I have given the book three stars for Campbell’s strong writing in certain places. I appreciated all of the nods to Borges, and Found Audio certainly packed in some deeply memorable scenes. I only wish that they had been stitched together more cohesively, and given even the vaguest semblance of an ending.
The Groundwork of the Story
An Indian-American woman living in Alaska is a legend within her field for her brilliant ability to discern the most cryptic sounds in audio recordings. One day, a mysterious man appears in her office with a series of cassette tapes, and offers her a large amount of money to examine them. The tapes have a stamp from a library in Buenos Aires that possibly does not exist, their origins seemingly shrouded in mystery and even danger. As the woman listens to the tapes, she discovers that they are a chronicle by an adventure journalist, obsessed with discovering the lost "City of Dreams."
The novel begins with the audio technician laying the groundwork of the plot. After about a chapter of that, we move on to her transcription of the tapes, which lasts for the rest of the novel except for one more chapter at the end. At the beginning, I was worried that the transcribed, dialogue-only format of the book would throw me off, but I quickly got used to it. The narrator’s recorded speeches read just like the average book would in terms of format, written as someone recalling vivid memories and telling stories to their audience.
The story then begins - the story within a story, as the cassettes on which the story is recorded have a tale of their own.
The narrator of the cassette tapes is one person, save for a few interruptions of other unidentified voices. He is an unnamed adventure journalist who travels the world in search of unique stories, and his narration begins with him seeking a story that will become a tipping point in his life.
Otha: Legend of the Bayou
A friend informs him about a man who lives in the vast, wild swamplands of the Louisiana Bayou, a “snake bounty hunter,” possibly earning a living by hunting invasive species of snakes. If that doesn’t sound like a good story, I don’t know what does, and our journalist narrator agrees.
However, his inquiries end up becoming strange rabbit holes. Otha takes on a mythical, shadowy persona. No one knows anything, but everyone has heard things. He seems half wanted criminal, half magical being. It’s said that he was born in the swamp and has always lived there.
Years ago, the government seized Otha’s land, not realizing that anyone was living on it. When they discovered their mistake, they granted him some of the land - as long as he never hunted on it. But rumors swirled that he was doing just that. It sounded as if the government had forced him into an impossible situation - if he was as reclusive and integrated into the swamp as it sounded, how would he eat if he couldn’t hunt? A government employee, when pressed by the journalist about Otha’s alleged hunting crimes, says “There was an unofficial order to leave [him] alone, as any money spent on catching him was as good as money spent on catching unicorns.”
Of course, the intrigue surrounding Otha only serves to make the narrator even more determined to find him. He says: “At this point, I thought Otha sounded like the bayou version of Davy Crocket or Paul Bunyan - a hero of the swamp, fighting as an underdog against an oppressive system. He sounded like what he was - which was larger than life.”
I was a bit disappointed when, for all the “no one knows his location” buildup, the journalist ends up finding Otha quite easily, simply asking around in a random bar. Upon meeting Otha, he says: “When I walked into the diner, he was the only one in the room. I don’t mean that there weren’t other people there, but this man’s whole… presence, for lack of a better word, was magnetic.”
From there, we are given a strange and fascinating glimpse into Otha’s life. The journalist’s attempts to interview him all fail, despite paying him $1,000 for a story. During the afternoon and overnight “visit” with Otha, it becomes increasingly clear to the journalist and the reader that he is a man who simply cannot be summarized, or understood.
I had been a bit worried that all of the mythical hype surrounding Otha would not be lived up to in the writing, but the author certainly pulled off an enigmatic and memorable character. His cryptic replies to the narrator’s questions, or weighty silence, only seem to leave us with more questions and no answers.
And then there is the setting of the swamp itself - darkly beautiful, murky and atmospheric.
In the night, the journalist sees Otha kill a few snakes, one of which he tells us was “about 30 feet long.” The actual longest snake ever recorded in history was about 20 feet long.
Upon killing the first snake, Otha proclaims, “‘Dey come fo’ da blood. ‘Dey all come fo’ da blood.” The scene was ominous, especially paired with the vivid, darkly beautiful descriptions of the bayou at night.
In the morning, Otha laughs off the journalist’s questions about the snakes he killed, and says that the other man simply fell asleep, and has apparently dreamed up all of these imaginary snakes.
All evening, the journalist had been telling the reader that he suspected he had been drugged by Otha, since he felt that the passing of time was wrong (hours would go by, but the sun hadn’t moved in the sky), the temperature went up by about 15 degrees, he saw Otha walk through water without making the slightest ripple, he had difficulty breathing as if at very high altitude, and was seized with an overpowering sense of dread.
We are left to decide for ourselves whether the journalist was drugged or not. Perhaps he simply lost track of time. Or perhaps he is not a reliable narrator.
The journalist leaves Otha the next morning, disappointed at having gotten no story and no answers or sense of understanding of the man before him.
As he departs at the edge of the swamp, Otha tells him “‘Dare ain’t always an easy explanation of a life.” The journalist concludes this part of his tale with, “Not often is there a day that goes by where I don’t find myself trying to explain that life.”
The Mystery Deepens
At this point, we have also seen a few unidentified different voices interrupt the journalist a few times, and we are led to believe that he has been ordered to tell his story, seemingly with no choice in the matter. At one point, the journalist is harshly interrupted by a woman, who says, “This is a test. This is all a test.” Who is this journalist relaying this story to? Perhaps he is a prisoner of some sort?
Also at the end of the Otha portion of his tale, the voices are heard clinically assessing him, as if for medical records, giving his weight, height, and other such details.
By now, I was impressed and looking forward to unraveling this book’s mysteries. It was impossible to guess in which direction the author would take the story, which is always very exciting. And up until this point, absolutely every detail of the plot and every character seemed an unanswered puzzle.
Although I have just written extensively about the Otha scene, it was simply that: a mere scene in the book, only the beginning. That N.J. Campbell was able to write such a memorable setting and character, without needing much time for the setup, had me already musing that Found Audio could end up being a favorite book of the year.
The Book Becomes Disappointingly Lost in its Own Mysteriousness
I would not say that the book went downhill from there. But I was expecting the story to take off from the Otha starting point, and to give us more clues and little keys to unlocking the abstract mysteries along the way. Perhaps you could say that it did just that. But I felt that the book never really went anywhere with what it gave the reader.
That is not to say that the book flatlines into dullness, because there were still plenty of plot points to lure in the reader: how the journalist is forever haunted and changed by his failure to get a story out of Otha, and most notably, how he becomes obsessed with a new potential story that also seems doomed to impossibility: the City of Dreams.
Supposedly, and based entirely off of scattered conjecture, there is a lost city that is a physical place where dreams are lived out, and woven into real life. The descriptions of how exactly such a place would work are hazy, so I remained confused about this for the rest of the book - presumably because the journalist does not know himself, as well as to retain the sense of mystery.
The journalist becomes fixated on finding this city, even taking same-day flights to remote countries whenever he hears so much as an insubstantial whisper about a “City of Dreams.”
This is the plot that dominates the book, and what I suppose it is meant to be about.
Now, tracking down a legendary man living in uncharted swamplands was one thing. Never for a moment in that part of the book was I struck with skepticism and pulled out of the story. But a city made of dreams, that the author and the journalist purport to be real, a physical place that really exists and can be traveled to - maybe? Or maybe not?
I was ready to be convinced. I was ready for Campbell to win me over and make me believe it. To make me yearn for our adventurous main character to find the city, and triumphantly prove the naysayers wrong. Unfortunately, that never happened.
Instead, I found myself agreeing with the journalist’s concerned friends who told him that he was experiencing a psychotic break, or trauma, hallucinating, or had taken drugs. And even before that, I just couldn’t even begin to believe in this dream city.
The character’s experiences while trying to find the place were so strange and vague, and not in a good way. I wasn’t enjoying this turn in the plot, or intrigued anymore. It seemed so far fetched. Even the way that the journalist heard about the city from a friend and immediately, just like that, was irrevocably obsessed and believed in it, left me dubious.
Although the book continued whisking us off to faraway settings as the narrator’s search expands across the globe, I had lost my sense of fascinated mystery with this book. I simply couldn’t care about this City of Dreams, or the search for it, because I couldn’t relate to it or see how it could be real.
I began wondering if the entire book was meant to be a trippy drug hallucination story - that’s how unconvincing it all was.
100% Mysterious, 0% Explanation
At this point, I was simply looking forward to finishing the book, and to seeing if the author would pull off some shocking twist in explaining the mystery of the casette tapes, and the identities of the interrogators who were demanding the narrator’s story.
However, the author had reminded us so little of that aspect of the plot, it wasn’t even of that much interest to me anymore. I was quite sure that I wouldn’t care about the answer, whatever it was going to be.
As it turned out, that assumption was incorrect. Because I was given no answer or mystery-solving revelation to care about, or to not care about.
Found Audio ended up being frustratingly 100% mysterious, but 0% explanation.
In another book, I could see this working. I would even say that I might be able to read this book again, ready for the lack of reveal, and be okay with it, recalling Otha's parting words: “‘Dare ain’t always an easy explanation of a life.” That is a very strong might, though, because I don't feel that this book has the complexity or depth to pull it off.
The book ends with little to nothing being wrapped up. There seemed to have been so many missed opportunities. For example, the man who appears out of the blue at the audio technician’s doorstep with the tapes - soon enough revealed to be a pretty conclusively dangerous individual, an international criminal - the people who defy him given to disappearing. And yet, he is not even a character in the story, never focused on, never given any significant stake in the plot, and in the end left to dwindle off, never brought up again. This was the way with so many of the plot points.
Even the story-within-a-story, which was definitely one of the things that I was most excited for about this book, ended up fizzling out into nothing. You could easily have cut out the first and last chapters (the only ones about the cassettes, and not comprised of the journalist's narrative), and the book would have been basically the same, save for the detail that it was recorded onto a tape that some people didn't want getting out, for no reason that we can discern.
Despite the strong start, in the end this book ended up getting lost and weighed down in the mire of its own mystery, severing the thread of my interest in the story and the outcome (a nonexistent outcome, it turned out, so perhaps that was for the best).
I have given the book three stars for Campbell’s strong writing in certain places. I appreciated all of the nods to Borges, and Found Audio certainly packed in some deeply memorable scenes. I only wish that they had been stitched together more cohesively, and given even the vaguest semblance of an ending.
May 19, 2020
When I was younger, and more prone to believing any of my thoughts and observations to be novel, I toyed with the notion that what we accept as our waking life and our dream life are, in fact reversed; that the so-called dreamscape is so wild and unmoored, so untethered to what we might call logic or consequence, that our brains, in order to make sense of it, create a quotidian tapestry of comforting familiarity which we then convince ourselves is our reality. I never believed this myself, but it always prompted an enjoyable conversation among my similarly well-meaning but mark-missing friends as we spent our late teens and early twenties trying on and testing out various intellectual hats.
Found Audio, N.J. Campbell's first novel, takes a similar conceit but brings to it great intelligence, ingenuity, and literary flair, constructing his narrative as a series of, essentially, monologues by an unnamed narrator, transcribed from three cassette tapes of a mysterious provenance, and detailing a series of inexplicable events which blur and strain the delineations between lived and dreamt experience. Framing these transcriptions are notes from their transcriber, Dr. Amrapali Singh, a professor of archival studies and audio archaeologist, who notes in both detail and haste the unusual circumstances by which she came into possession of the tapes as well as their distinct technical anomalies; and a foreword and afterword by Campbell further describing his own acquisition of the manuscript and his attempts to identify and locate the people named therein, most of whom having disappeared under unusual circumstances.
Nesting within this matryoshka are numerous ruminations on time, purpose, knowledge, intimacy, and existence which would be cheapened by summation; the beauty of Found Audio is in its union of form and content, how the questions it raises in one are underscored by the other, and by the way it combines elements which, out of their context, might be misconstrued as meretricious shibboleths into a whole markedly better than the sum of its parts. It raises far more questions than it answers, doing so in a way that is not frustrating but rather illuminating, edifying, and rewarding in its open-endedness.
Found Audio, N.J. Campbell's first novel, takes a similar conceit but brings to it great intelligence, ingenuity, and literary flair, constructing his narrative as a series of, essentially, monologues by an unnamed narrator, transcribed from three cassette tapes of a mysterious provenance, and detailing a series of inexplicable events which blur and strain the delineations between lived and dreamt experience. Framing these transcriptions are notes from their transcriber, Dr. Amrapali Singh, a professor of archival studies and audio archaeologist, who notes in both detail and haste the unusual circumstances by which she came into possession of the tapes as well as their distinct technical anomalies; and a foreword and afterword by Campbell further describing his own acquisition of the manuscript and his attempts to identify and locate the people named therein, most of whom having disappeared under unusual circumstances.
Nesting within this matryoshka are numerous ruminations on time, purpose, knowledge, intimacy, and existence which would be cheapened by summation; the beauty of Found Audio is in its union of form and content, how the questions it raises in one are underscored by the other, and by the way it combines elements which, out of their context, might be misconstrued as meretricious shibboleths into a whole markedly better than the sum of its parts. It raises far more questions than it answers, doing so in a way that is not frustrating but rather illuminating, edifying, and rewarding in its open-endedness.
October 8, 2022
And I just smiled and pointed at the horizon through the gray, misty light. 'We all die someday. We don't all get such a sight.
She laughed in a wild way. 'Look at you,' she said, pointing at my posture--at my blind confidence on a small raft in the middle of the Pacific, and then a half-puzzled look came over her face. 'A conquistador of nowhere,' she shouted through the rain with a smile on her lips.
I was pretty well bound to love this, a whole love letter to the Red King, to our inability to know what we do not know, to games that become mysteries and mysteries that become games. And I do love it. That it holds Borges and Zelazny in equal regard is just the frosting.
Nonetheless, I do wish there were more 'there' there. Not that we got more answers, but that the central mystery that drives a man to the brink of his sanity were not something anyone who has read of Wonderland with any seriousness has already confronted. I am reminded of a story I read somewhere about Harlan Ellison working with video game designers on I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream and how they had to explain his efforts to stump players with the profundity of the plot wouldn't work, because players would just follow gamer culture and try clicking everything until something solved the puzzle. I spent a lot of time here frustrated with the narrator. Just click the thing already! But of course books don't work like that.
It did not help that, after a few brief pages, I was totally ready to follow Amrapali Anna Singh to the ends of the earth, and then I didn't get to follow her anywhere at all. Her replacement is poignant and credible, but I never found the same connection.
Why am I complaining? I'm not, really. It's just that I think this is one of those times where I enjoyed the daylights out of something because of my super specific niche interests, and if you don't happen to share those interests, I'm not sure this will carry quite the same joy. Worth a try, though!
(Just out of curiosity, has anyone heard anything from this author since 2020 when his Twitter stops? I am... concerned.)
She laughed in a wild way. 'Look at you,' she said, pointing at my posture--at my blind confidence on a small raft in the middle of the Pacific, and then a half-puzzled look came over her face. 'A conquistador of nowhere,' she shouted through the rain with a smile on her lips.
I was pretty well bound to love this, a whole love letter to the Red King, to our inability to know what we do not know, to games that become mysteries and mysteries that become games. And I do love it. That it holds Borges and Zelazny in equal regard is just the frosting.
Nonetheless, I do wish there were more 'there' there. Not that we got more answers, but that the central mystery that drives a man to the brink of his sanity were not something anyone who has read of Wonderland with any seriousness has already confronted. I am reminded of a story I read somewhere about Harlan Ellison working with video game designers on I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream and how they had to explain his efforts to stump players with the profundity of the plot wouldn't work, because players would just follow gamer culture and try clicking everything until something solved the puzzle. I spent a lot of time here frustrated with the narrator. Just click the thing already! But of course books don't work like that.
It did not help that, after a few brief pages, I was totally ready to follow Amrapali Anna Singh to the ends of the earth, and then I didn't get to follow her anywhere at all. Her replacement is poignant and credible, but I never found the same connection.
Why am I complaining? I'm not, really. It's just that I think this is one of those times where I enjoyed the daylights out of something because of my super specific niche interests, and if you don't happen to share those interests, I'm not sure this will carry quite the same joy. Worth a try, though!
(Just out of curiosity, has anyone heard anything from this author since 2020 when his Twitter stops? I am... concerned.)
May 8, 2018
Look at that cover! Read that inside flap! See that Two Dollar Radio imprint? You are intrigued, yes?
I hesitate to be to hard on this book, which is clearly a personal work by a young writer published by an (awesome, Columbus-based) independent press, but it was pretty disappointing. It promises a mindfuck and gives you... Well, a lot of stock dream material. A big sticking point for me was the prose style. The majority of the book is a "transcription" of a series of mysterious tapes, but the writing is too "writerly" to feel like human speech, yet too simplistic to really plumb the depths of time and being, etc. The most interesting elements of the book, the elements that should be essential in a work about "found audio" -- its "frame," the footnotes indicating where background noise is heard, etc-- seem more like afterthoughts.
I stuck with it expecting a twist that would re-orient my understanding... But I didn't find it. Maybe I didn't read closely enough? The craziest thing about it was how it referenced "The Turk," a character in history I didn't know about until a conversation I just HAPPENED to have LAST NIGHT. COINCIDENCES, MANNNNN
I hesitate to be to hard on this book, which is clearly a personal work by a young writer published by an (awesome, Columbus-based) independent press, but it was pretty disappointing. It promises a mindfuck and gives you... Well, a lot of stock dream material. A big sticking point for me was the prose style. The majority of the book is a "transcription" of a series of mysterious tapes, but the writing is too "writerly" to feel like human speech, yet too simplistic to really plumb the depths of time and being, etc. The most interesting elements of the book, the elements that should be essential in a work about "found audio" -- its "frame," the footnotes indicating where background noise is heard, etc-- seem more like afterthoughts.
I stuck with it expecting a twist that would re-orient my understanding... But I didn't find it. Maybe I didn't read closely enough? The craziest thing about it was how it referenced "The Turk," a character in history I didn't know about until a conversation I just HAPPENED to have LAST NIGHT. COINCIDENCES, MANNNNN
September 2, 2017
A surprisingly engaging metafiction puzzle of a book.
I ran across this randomly as being review on the Columbus Metropolitan Library's homepage. Intrigued by title and cover art, I was further enticed enough by its short length to request a copy. Little did I know that Two Dollar Radio -- the publisher -- is a Columbus based company.
The layered narrative of the book instantly appealed to me, and the narrative included on the cassettes themselves was endlessly changing -- almost dreamlike -- and invariably compelling.
I thought the wrap up at the end of Tape 3 got a little long winded; not much, just a little. And I wish there had been more notation regarding the audio notations; I thought the inserted "noise" was fascinating, and would gladly have read more.
Overall, though, a great surprise. I didn't even know I needed reinvigorated as a reader until I found this book.
I ran across this randomly as being review on the Columbus Metropolitan Library's homepage. Intrigued by title and cover art, I was further enticed enough by its short length to request a copy. Little did I know that Two Dollar Radio -- the publisher -- is a Columbus based company.
The layered narrative of the book instantly appealed to me, and the narrative included on the cassettes themselves was endlessly changing -- almost dreamlike -- and invariably compelling.
I thought the wrap up at the end of Tape 3 got a little long winded; not much, just a little. And I wish there had been more notation regarding the audio notations; I thought the inserted "noise" was fascinating, and would gladly have read more.
Overall, though, a great surprise. I didn't even know I needed reinvigorated as a reader until I found this book.
April 27, 2018
I finished this a bit ago and yet I’m still not sure what my ultimate thoughts are. I greatly enjoy the unique voice of this book - it’s mostly all told from a one person dialogue - and for awhile I really thought the strangeness of the story was appealing. However, I soon came to realize that this story was meandering and seemingly without a point...which may have been the point...except I could hardly care by the time I realized that. The epilogue was really the best part of the book for me. It’s where you finally feel some unease over what may have happened. But, while the ending is very strong, it doesn’t do enough to overrule the rest of the non-story. 2.5 stars.
July 11, 2017
The very notions of time and memory and consciousness, or what it means to know one is "living," are questioning throughout N.J. Campbell's debut. A strange series of tales told by a singular narrator, this book works to show the reader his own time and it's connectedness to the time and questions that have come before and will surely come after. Are we awake and living or are we dreaming and does it matter which?
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