Huddleston Road

by John Toomey

When Vic meets Lali, they stumble into a dysfunctional ten-year relationship that leaves him in ruins and raising a child on his own. As Vic strives to protect their daughter from the cruel truths of his relationship with her mother, he finds himself hopelessly submerged in Lali's seemingly inexplicable contradictions, and their implications concerning his own inability to move on. "Huddleston Road" is an honest, often brutal examination of the loneliness that results from our inability to truly know the people who share our lives-and about our need to reach out and try nonetheless.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 2012

Reviews

[Jillian Fischer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story about suicide. Seemed more like an essay than a novel. Excellent writing, but not a great read.

[Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid prose writing, as was the case with the first (and better) book from Mr. Toomey, though I am sure people will be dissuaded from this one due to the story, which is essentially: difficult, tortured (read: crazy) woman makes man's life hell (Leonard Micheals's Sylvia comes to mind). Okay, it's been done, but then again there have been plenty of difficult, tortured man and the long suffering woman who stands by him books (Under the volcano), so either you decide right now that the theme has been done to death and skip this or you decide that you don't care about repeated themes so long as the writing's good and the novel engages. Okay, now that we've cleared out all those bemoaning bores, get reading!

[Rick Seery · Rating 1 out of 5]

Second novel by Toomey. Desperately overwritten. Hard to fathom this as a Dalkey Archive publication. The prose is leaden and images are (often) forced. Watercolour sentences float in muddles. Toomey isn't a bad writer (there are occasionally nice patches of expression), though he hammers his metaphors in a repetitive manner that will try seasoned readers. His themes are heavy, but Toomey fails to illuminate his key concerns with any subtlety or style. Instead his wretched narrative tends to descend into circles as opaque, hopeless and dull as his mired protagonist's obsessions.

[David Markwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to enjoy this, but just couldn't. The characters seemed flat and lacked motivation.