The Never Fable

by Steven Brandsdorfer

Before his severe head trauma is ever diagnosed, Daniel Never wanders from the hospital where he has woken onto the dark streets of Manhattan, unaware of why or when he made the trip from Philadelphia. Motivated by the psychological effects of his injuries, the suggestions of voices in his mind and the unusual tales of his dreams, the year to follow throws him, his family and the characters of his delusions into both real-life turmoil and an unlikely struggle that has spanned the course of American history. The Never Fable is, on its surface, a thriller centered around the trappings of post-traumatic psychosis, homelessness, substance abuse and rehabilitation. But beneath that surface lies great adventure - a type of historical and religious mythology paralleling Daniel’s grandfather’s war stories and the endless babbling of his family’s television set. Throughout, Daniel flies full-speed from Andrew Jackson's invasion of Spanish Florida to everyday frustrations with an ex-girlfriend, between the bizarre death of Zachary Taylor and the difficulty of simply finding a job, from the battles of the American Civil War to the nuisances of therapy sessions and hospital visits, and then back again, full-circle, to a shocking solution to all of Daniel’s problems. This is Steven Brandsdorfer's debut novel, a work of pure fiction written over many years and inspired by the fine line between reality and everything else.

282 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2012

Reviews

[Jason Pettus · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Well, when you pour through a book a day like I've been doing this month, in an attempt to whittle down my now gigantic to-read list before the holidays are over, it's inevitable that you will eventually come across some clunkers; so I decided to save them up and share all of them in a row this week, so that my so-so reviews will hopefully have less of an audience and therefore less of an impact on these books here right before Christmas. First up, the self-published The Never Fable by Steven Brandsdorfer, which actually has a pretty decent premise: it tells the dual stories of a gentleman named Daniel Never, who exists simultaneously as a mental patient in contemporary New York City and as a foot soldier during Andrew Jackson's Florida campaign in the early 1800s, as both these lives are affected by various dark, seemingly fantastical touches. No, the problem lies directly in a subject that is common among self-published writers, which is pacing or more precisely a lack of one; namely, Brandsdorfer must have saved all the interesting bits of this story for the second half of this overinflated manuscript, because in the half I read, he will often go ten or twenty pages at a time while getting not a single interesting point across, just entire chapters that can literally be summed up with a simple "and then he sat in his car some more" or "and then they walked through a swamp for another eight hours." I know it's unfair to judge a book without finishing it, but it's also a fact that a book needs to be interesting enough during any particular part of it to compel a reader to continue; and after trudging through a literal 150 pages of The Never Fable with still not a single major plot point occurring, I feel this is a large enough chunk that I can at least say with authority that it's not really worth your time. In its defense, the book has received good reviews from others, so I suspect it's worth finishing if you have a particular interest in these subjects, but otherwise my recommendation is to skip it altogether.

Out of 10: 6.8

[Karen Cannonier · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me this book is like a roller coaster; it is slow with details that are oh hum then BOOM all of sudden every thing in this book is all over the place moving Fast...Very Fast then back again. Not an easy read at all.