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Weatherhead
Nine months after his wife's death, a man is abducted from his house by a band of violent thieves and taken to a nightmarish city called Weatherhead. There he falls under the dark attentions of the cruel, despotic ruler of the city: the wife he thought dead.
This a love story between a person still living and a person still dead. It is also a hate story between the same, a violent story populated with all manner of ruffians, crimes, running street battles between Love and Hate (a particularly nasty bunch who hang out at soda fountains and dress terribly) and knife-fights between mourning and evening spouses. It is a story of how we remember those who are lost, and how we rebuild those who shattered in life. If life is a place in which we die, what does that make death?
This a love story between a person still living and a person still dead. It is also a hate story between the same, a violent story populated with all manner of ruffians, crimes, running street battles between Love and Hate (a particularly nasty bunch who hang out at soda fountains and dress terribly) and knife-fights between mourning and evening spouses. It is a story of how we remember those who are lost, and how we rebuild those who shattered in life. If life is a place in which we die, what does that make death?
399 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 22, 2014
62 people are currently reading
157 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 3, 2015
To paraphrase Cixous, reading this novel is like walking on a dizzying silence reading one word after another on emptiness. She actually said that about the writing process itself but here it applies to this strange, savage landscape that Hushour has brought to life. Amongst the phantasmagoria and humor there is an unease, the feeling that the ground will give way beneath you or that you will fall into the maw of the sky. The author has a Kubrickian claustrophobia and his love of mazes as well, not only borne out by the topography of Weatherhead itself but in the labyrinth's of his character's souls. This is a big work that invites you to live in it a while, to try on its weird garments and act differently in the face of the world's chaos
Remember when you were just outside Barstow in Bat Country? Remember when you suckled on Mugwump jism in Tangiers or peeled the layers of Calvino's Venice? Remember getting caught in the geometry of Pynchon or the poetry and meditation of Lispector? Remember discovering the gentle melancholy of Georges Perec? Remember Weatherhead. Relish the terror of existence.
To quote Cixous more directly, "I learned infinity limits love. One must never stop giving it limits to devour."
Remember when you were just outside Barstow in Bat Country? Remember when you suckled on Mugwump jism in Tangiers or peeled the layers of Calvino's Venice? Remember getting caught in the geometry of Pynchon or the poetry and meditation of Lispector? Remember discovering the gentle melancholy of Georges Perec? Remember Weatherhead. Relish the terror of existence.
To quote Cixous more directly, "I learned infinity limits love. One must never stop giving it limits to devour."
September 14, 2017
I don’t typically like to give low ratings, and I tried to find some way of justifying a higher rating for this book, but unfortunately I felt Weatherhead was deserving of 2 Stars. Which may come as a surprise for some people, given the generally high ratings. So, while this may come down to taste, I’m going to try to give a more thorough explanation of why I gave this book the rating I did.
To check out more of my book reviews, please visit my blog: https://isaacalder.wordpress.com
Pros:
- More a very long, abstract poem than a traditional novel (frankly, nothing about this book is a traditional novel), Hushour’s strongest skill is artistic writing. Alternating between strikingly surreal and horrifically beautiful, the vast majority of the novel is composed of lengthy descriptions of the setting, emotions, interactions, or just abstractions of seemingly little relevance. While these will be touched on as a con as well, objectively speaking they are remarkably well crafted gems of poetry.
- Despite the cons, this book is uniquely captivating, with special emphasis on both words. Unique in the sense that there are very few novels I have encountered which set out to do what Hushour did and manage to do so without just creating senseless drivel. Even if it is difficult to follow, his novel still contains plot and characters that help maintain its shape. And that shape is, without a doubt, captivating. It may have been a struggle at some points, but I did finish the novel, because the writing and those elements of story and character made me want to reach the end.
Cons:
- In both of my pros, I reference the difficulty in following Hushour’s writing and the lack of cohesiveness and sense of relevance. While the pros were enough to keep me from giving up on the book, they were heavily tainted by the simple fact that the book doesn’t make a lot of sense. A defensive fan of the book may say I just didn’t “get it,” but I think I did. I even appreciated it. But the usage of excessive metaphors, insanely high-brow/superfluous/possibly made up vocabulary, and downright painfully intangible descriptions detracted from all of the good things about the book.
- Book length is not something I usually consider in my reviews, but in this case it has to be noted. Especially given the above con, the length of the book (400 pages according to Goodreads) is outrageous. The difficult style could be forgiven as poetics if the novel was shorter, but so many pages is just frustrating and makes the novel all the more difficult to get through. It doesn’t help that, if much of the unnecessary verbosity was removed, the story could be the same, with no sacrifice of artistry, and be half the length.
Would I Recommend?
This style is like Faulkner through a meat grinder. The novel is long, and the content is difficult to get through. The story is good, but lost in the chaos. And yet, many people like it. So, I recommend that if you are thinking of reading this book, read a sample. The first couple chapters in a preview will suffice. If you think, “yeah, this is good,” then read the whole thing. If you think, “eh, it’s okay, maybe I’ll get used to it,” or, even worse, “wow I can barely read this,” then you will not like the book and I highly recommend you do not force yourself further.
To check out more of my book reviews, please visit my blog: https://isaacalder.wordpress.com
Pros:
- More a very long, abstract poem than a traditional novel (frankly, nothing about this book is a traditional novel), Hushour’s strongest skill is artistic writing. Alternating between strikingly surreal and horrifically beautiful, the vast majority of the novel is composed of lengthy descriptions of the setting, emotions, interactions, or just abstractions of seemingly little relevance. While these will be touched on as a con as well, objectively speaking they are remarkably well crafted gems of poetry.
- Despite the cons, this book is uniquely captivating, with special emphasis on both words. Unique in the sense that there are very few novels I have encountered which set out to do what Hushour did and manage to do so without just creating senseless drivel. Even if it is difficult to follow, his novel still contains plot and characters that help maintain its shape. And that shape is, without a doubt, captivating. It may have been a struggle at some points, but I did finish the novel, because the writing and those elements of story and character made me want to reach the end.
Cons:
- In both of my pros, I reference the difficulty in following Hushour’s writing and the lack of cohesiveness and sense of relevance. While the pros were enough to keep me from giving up on the book, they were heavily tainted by the simple fact that the book doesn’t make a lot of sense. A defensive fan of the book may say I just didn’t “get it,” but I think I did. I even appreciated it. But the usage of excessive metaphors, insanely high-brow/superfluous/possibly made up vocabulary, and downright painfully intangible descriptions detracted from all of the good things about the book.
- Book length is not something I usually consider in my reviews, but in this case it has to be noted. Especially given the above con, the length of the book (400 pages according to Goodreads) is outrageous. The difficult style could be forgiven as poetics if the novel was shorter, but so many pages is just frustrating and makes the novel all the more difficult to get through. It doesn’t help that, if much of the unnecessary verbosity was removed, the story could be the same, with no sacrifice of artistry, and be half the length.
Would I Recommend?
This style is like Faulkner through a meat grinder. The novel is long, and the content is difficult to get through. The story is good, but lost in the chaos. And yet, many people like it. So, I recommend that if you are thinking of reading this book, read a sample. The first couple chapters in a preview will suffice. If you think, “yeah, this is good,” then read the whole thing. If you think, “eh, it’s okay, maybe I’ll get used to it,” or, even worse, “wow I can barely read this,” then you will not like the book and I highly recommend you do not force yourself further.
October 25, 2019
This is one of the most difficult reviews I have written, and yet the book is undoubtedly a work of genius and can't possibly be awarded less than 5 stars. And yet I am at a loss who to recommend it to, because it is most definitely not for all readers.
Let's start with the basic scenario (there'll be no spoilers here). A cop's wife is killed when she is hit by a speeding truck on a lonely stretch of road. Months later, he is abducted by four bizarre thugs who take him through a weird landscape to a peculiar city, which is ruled over by a tyrant who is the spitting image of his dead wife.
That's the scenario, and the (very, very lengthy) book seeks to unravel the mysteries, as well as affording frequent and detailed flashbacks to life with his wife before he was bereaved.
The writing style is as bizarre as the setting and situation, with continual shifts in meaning, puns and plays upon words. Sentences mean one thing, then suddenly shift to mean another. Reality shifts and changes. The reader as much as the cop must learn to speak the 'language of Weatherhead' if there is to be any hope of following what is happening. Expectations are subverted at every turn. The laws of cause and effect are utterly different in this strange city, and its language expresses this. It is fascinating and addictive once you allow it into your head, but I must confess that it is as likely to infuriate as many readers as it bewitches. Perhaps you have to want to be bewitched in order to read this book?
It is a book of puzzles and maps and crosswords, where the rules are as mutable as the answers, and as such I found it a delight.
The whole long affair is a rumination upon life and death, upon relationships, upon love and hate, upon knowledge and ignorance, about how near impossible it is to ever truly know another person, how idiosyncrasies are precious.
Ultimately, it is beyond life and death, and it ends as a new puzzle and a new game begins. Sad and yet joyous, defeated and yet triumphant, betrayed and yet saved. It is beautiful beyond words in a profound way which is beyond even the language of Weatherhead to express.
Yes, I DO recommend it. You can chastise me for it later if you wish, but read it first.
Let's start with the basic scenario (there'll be no spoilers here). A cop's wife is killed when she is hit by a speeding truck on a lonely stretch of road. Months later, he is abducted by four bizarre thugs who take him through a weird landscape to a peculiar city, which is ruled over by a tyrant who is the spitting image of his dead wife.
That's the scenario, and the (very, very lengthy) book seeks to unravel the mysteries, as well as affording frequent and detailed flashbacks to life with his wife before he was bereaved.
The writing style is as bizarre as the setting and situation, with continual shifts in meaning, puns and plays upon words. Sentences mean one thing, then suddenly shift to mean another. Reality shifts and changes. The reader as much as the cop must learn to speak the 'language of Weatherhead' if there is to be any hope of following what is happening. Expectations are subverted at every turn. The laws of cause and effect are utterly different in this strange city, and its language expresses this. It is fascinating and addictive once you allow it into your head, but I must confess that it is as likely to infuriate as many readers as it bewitches. Perhaps you have to want to be bewitched in order to read this book?
It is a book of puzzles and maps and crosswords, where the rules are as mutable as the answers, and as such I found it a delight.
The whole long affair is a rumination upon life and death, upon relationships, upon love and hate, upon knowledge and ignorance, about how near impossible it is to ever truly know another person, how idiosyncrasies are precious.
Ultimately, it is beyond life and death, and it ends as a new puzzle and a new game begins. Sad and yet joyous, defeated and yet triumphant, betrayed and yet saved. It is beautiful beyond words in a profound way which is beyond even the language of Weatherhead to express.
Yes, I DO recommend it. You can chastise me for it later if you wish, but read it first.
January 13, 2016
I can't, in its entirety, exactly explain what happened in this novel and what it's about. It was trippy and bizarre and really rather sad.
There were parts of the book (flashbacks) about the protagonists and their doomed marriage that were clear and beautiful. These were dispersed between surreal scenes with unnerving and distorted characters.
This it not something I'd normally claim to have loved reading, but, despite getting a little lost and confused during the longer abstract scenes, there was also an awful lot I did love, especially the slow build. Full marks from me!
There were parts of the book (flashbacks) about the protagonists and their doomed marriage that were clear and beautiful. These were dispersed between surreal scenes with unnerving and distorted characters.
This it not something I'd normally claim to have loved reading, but, despite getting a little lost and confused during the longer abstract scenes, there was also an awful lot I did love, especially the slow build. Full marks from me!
April 23, 2026
This book is as vapid as a puzzle drawn in water, a puzzle depicting little more than the black of mourning.
There isn't really anything deep for the reader to get, it repetitively and unsubtly lays itself out for the audience. Most anyone should be able to understand what little it has to say, it's just really difficult to pay attention to such tediously boring filler, so I doubt if many would.
Nearly 300,000 words. 300,000 words of a 1-note book. That's enough for an entire trilogy of books. Instead it's barely even one. A 300,000-long stream of conscious word vomit dwelling on some Chud and his dead wife. (To mirror this book I won't even attempt to organize my thoughts on it).
The 'plot' is essentially Chud wrestling with his metaphorically literal inner-demons over his love-hate marriage with his dead wife. Because why deal with actual emotional depth and introspection for character development when you can just be amnesiac-noncharacter narcissists on a tedious adventure to belabor your self-consumed insides on your outsides? A 1-note externalization of their sad-sack lives. Narcissism manifest. A boring, self-referentially self-absorbed non-story dreamscape ala Alice in Wonderland/The Wizard of Oz/etc-etc. pretentiously trying to be as artistically coy as possible to self-consciously mystify a simple (non)story for fear of its boring derivativity being read.
Boomer cheating cop cuck projectionist racist loves to hate his manic narcissist head-ass wife: enjoy their generic nonstory of repetitive redneck shit-stirring misery-porn in their narrowminded prison of suicidal pity-parties over their undead-bedroom and inability to have kids. Could the plot to this story be any more tedious? Why yes, let's copy-paste it on repeat for both the a and b plot of this self-referential nonstory, can you say shitty Slaughterhouse-Five times longer with half the plot?
This author is writing longform country music lyrics with no score. Pretentious country slam-poetry to narrate the POV of some dipshits who couldn't even read. Clearly the author could not possibly have thought of a better format to fit these characters.
It's extremely pretentious. Instead of depth, most of it is vapid wordplay of pointless connections, improv scenes, and quirky worldbuilding. Only rarely is there any actual subtext adding meaning to the 1-note text and the vast majority of the time that added meaning is just self-referentially reiterating the 1-note. In other words, it wastes your time being deliberately obtuse, not to add subtext but to simply bury the meaning of the text because the pretentious author loves the sound of his own voice. The emperor is very proud of his new clothes. To quote: "You stupid man with all your answers and faiths! What about the questions? Have faith in them! They’re way more interesting! Why would any story about love have a clear meaning? S'all a puzzle!" The central question being why are these assholes together till death do they part and even after? The resolution being because he wants to make the beast with two backs with her because he's still horny for his manic pixie dreamboat he wants to sail away on. Great. Pretentious anti-intellectual garbage.
The pretentious poetry, (the arbitrary alliterations), of ten-thousand almost meaningless abstractions in lieu of actual poetry or depth or even more than a short-story's worth of narrative. Instead of adding depth through connections, this is a self-referential display of mental-illness through malapropism/paraphasia to make all the prose as pretentiously vapid as the vapid world it depicts. It is genuinely frustrating to see so many of my personal preferences: (fantasy, dreamworlds, ghost-story, denpa, symbolism, connectivity, etc.) used so poorly as to turn what should've been a wondrous story into the most tediously mundane and pretentiously vapid 'woe is me' exploration of one's own head up their own ass. How do you fuck up a fantastical dreamworld this much with such mundane garbage? God, this is like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell but doing everything wrong.
I really wanted to like this, but the best it managed was a 2-star beginning while I was desperately hoping it would get better and made it 20% through before my patience broke as it became absolute suffering forcing myself to continue reading redundancy upon redundancy adding nothing of value. Nothing but rehashings of the same cheating/infertility/marital-spats over and over until 70% through.
There are like 5 extremely brief points in this book with actual plot mostly towards the beginning and the end, the rest is pretty much entirely redundant filler.
It is genuinely difficult to force oneself to pay attention to such pointless prose rather than blockout this gibbering noise. So many blatantly accidental typos among deliberate linguistic divergences make it harder to parse meaning from noise, especially when the deliberate choices are often as equally vapid as the typos. Overall it comes across about as amateurish and morally narcissistic as an author buying the rights to Emma Watson fanart from an artist who doesn't have the rights to profit off her likeness so that said author can use it as a book cover despite also not having the rights to profit off of her likeness.
For some reason among this entire cast of rednecks, JD Vance is raping furniture in here. Quirky.
This is like if 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' were 'Nothing Nowhere None of the Time', it absolutely strangles any possible enjoyment by turning a fantastical externalized dreamworld of infinite possibility into the most tediously depressive wild-west pity-party of vapid narcissism.
Lost Gods isn't even a high bar, but this digs itself all the way through purgatory.
Like if The Boy and The Heron were even more vapid.
Go play Silent Hill 2, Disco Elysium, or Majora's Mask instead.
In tribute to one of the worst books I have ever read, here is a generic madlibbed country song, it is sadly better than anything you can find in this book:
Always Stay Falling, Maggie | A Country Song By Jim
I grew up overshadowed by them fancy lives
Couldn't catch the eye of no city girl
Here I'm devoted to my Magazine
Where the flying birds sail over framing skies
Riding that angry truck with you at my side
How I love the look of them thin red lines
Brush your red hair from my eyes
See how I let you cloud my mind
My wife whispers Weatherheaded dreams
Reminds me of her cries
That whisper builds before that whisper dies
My wife's up in them morning skies
Them city folk with their fancy lies
Cement birds got nothin' on our way a life
Just listen to them cries
You know, there's a lot to drive by in an angry truck
Folk who be messing up
(Always stay falling, Mags)
(Always stay falling, Mags)
When I was a young boy, my wife took me into the city
In Weatherhead, when I met a falling wife, when I asked
"How can you be when you are not alive?"
She gave her fist in reply
Don't live your life like a cuck
That ain't no way to die
Shootin' blanks in the mag
No you can't fuck your wife
Met an old lady who lived like a cuck
"What happened to her?" said I
Here was her poetic reprise
Don't live your life like a cuck
Today you might feel like a cuck
But that ain't no way to lead a life
That lady's gone now
It's sad really
Word is, she had red hair once
My wife had red hair once
Little Magazine, hold you in my thin red lines
(Always stay falling, Mag)
(Always stay falling, Mag)
Birds, birds, birds
Birds, birds, birds...
There was a wife here
Before there was a truck
There isn't really anything deep for the reader to get, it repetitively and unsubtly lays itself out for the audience. Most anyone should be able to understand what little it has to say, it's just really difficult to pay attention to such tediously boring filler, so I doubt if many would.
Nearly 300,000 words. 300,000 words of a 1-note book. That's enough for an entire trilogy of books. Instead it's barely even one. A 300,000-long stream of conscious word vomit dwelling on some Chud and his dead wife. (To mirror this book I won't even attempt to organize my thoughts on it).
The 'plot' is essentially Chud wrestling with his metaphorically literal inner-demons over his love-hate marriage with his dead wife. Because why deal with actual emotional depth and introspection for character development when you can just be amnesiac-noncharacter narcissists on a tedious adventure to belabor your self-consumed insides on your outsides? A 1-note externalization of their sad-sack lives. Narcissism manifest. A boring, self-referentially self-absorbed non-story dreamscape ala Alice in Wonderland/The Wizard of Oz/etc-etc. pretentiously trying to be as artistically coy as possible to self-consciously mystify a simple (non)story for fear of its boring derivativity being read.
Boomer cheating cop cuck projectionist racist loves to hate his manic narcissist head-ass wife: enjoy their generic nonstory of repetitive redneck shit-stirring misery-porn in their narrowminded prison of suicidal pity-parties over their undead-bedroom and inability to have kids. Could the plot to this story be any more tedious? Why yes, let's copy-paste it on repeat for both the a and b plot of this self-referential nonstory, can you say shitty Slaughterhouse-Five times longer with half the plot?
This author is writing longform country music lyrics with no score. Pretentious country slam-poetry to narrate the POV of some dipshits who couldn't even read. Clearly the author could not possibly have thought of a better format to fit these characters.
It's extremely pretentious. Instead of depth, most of it is vapid wordplay of pointless connections, improv scenes, and quirky worldbuilding. Only rarely is there any actual subtext adding meaning to the 1-note text and the vast majority of the time that added meaning is just self-referentially reiterating the 1-note. In other words, it wastes your time being deliberately obtuse, not to add subtext but to simply bury the meaning of the text because the pretentious author loves the sound of his own voice. The emperor is very proud of his new clothes. To quote: "You stupid man with all your answers and faiths! What about the questions? Have faith in them! They’re way more interesting! Why would any story about love have a clear meaning? S'all a puzzle!" The central question being why are these assholes together till death do they part and even after? The resolution being because he wants to make the beast with two backs with her because he's still horny for his manic pixie dreamboat he wants to sail away on. Great. Pretentious anti-intellectual garbage.
The pretentious poetry, (the arbitrary alliterations), of ten-thousand almost meaningless abstractions in lieu of actual poetry or depth or even more than a short-story's worth of narrative. Instead of adding depth through connections, this is a self-referential display of mental-illness through malapropism/paraphasia to make all the prose as pretentiously vapid as the vapid world it depicts. It is genuinely frustrating to see so many of my personal preferences: (fantasy, dreamworlds, ghost-story, denpa, symbolism, connectivity, etc.) used so poorly as to turn what should've been a wondrous story into the most tediously mundane and pretentiously vapid 'woe is me' exploration of one's own head up their own ass. How do you fuck up a fantastical dreamworld this much with such mundane garbage? God, this is like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell but doing everything wrong.
I really wanted to like this, but the best it managed was a 2-star beginning while I was desperately hoping it would get better and made it 20% through before my patience broke as it became absolute suffering forcing myself to continue reading redundancy upon redundancy adding nothing of value. Nothing but rehashings of the same cheating/infertility/marital-spats over and over until 70% through.
There are like 5 extremely brief points in this book with actual plot mostly towards the beginning and the end, the rest is pretty much entirely redundant filler.
It is genuinely difficult to force oneself to pay attention to such pointless prose rather than blockout this gibbering noise. So many blatantly accidental typos among deliberate linguistic divergences make it harder to parse meaning from noise, especially when the deliberate choices are often as equally vapid as the typos. Overall it comes across about as amateurish and morally narcissistic as an author buying the rights to Emma Watson fanart from an artist who doesn't have the rights to profit off her likeness so that said author can use it as a book cover despite also not having the rights to profit off of her likeness.
For some reason among this entire cast of rednecks, JD Vance is raping furniture in here. Quirky.
This is like if 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' were 'Nothing Nowhere None of the Time', it absolutely strangles any possible enjoyment by turning a fantastical externalized dreamworld of infinite possibility into the most tediously depressive wild-west pity-party of vapid narcissism.
Lost Gods isn't even a high bar, but this digs itself all the way through purgatory.
Like if The Boy and The Heron were even more vapid.
Go play Silent Hill 2, Disco Elysium, or Majora's Mask instead.
In tribute to one of the worst books I have ever read, here is a generic madlibbed country song, it is sadly better than anything you can find in this book:
Always Stay Falling, Maggie | A Country Song By Jim
I grew up overshadowed by them fancy lives
Couldn't catch the eye of no city girl
Here I'm devoted to my Magazine
Where the flying birds sail over framing skies
Riding that angry truck with you at my side
How I love the look of them thin red lines
Brush your red hair from my eyes
See how I let you cloud my mind
My wife whispers Weatherheaded dreams
Reminds me of her cries
That whisper builds before that whisper dies
My wife's up in them morning skies
Them city folk with their fancy lies
Cement birds got nothin' on our way a life
Just listen to them cries
You know, there's a lot to drive by in an angry truck
Folk who be messing up
(Always stay falling, Mags)
(Always stay falling, Mags)
When I was a young boy, my wife took me into the city
In Weatherhead, when I met a falling wife, when I asked
"How can you be when you are not alive?"
She gave her fist in reply
Don't live your life like a cuck
That ain't no way to die
Shootin' blanks in the mag
No you can't fuck your wife
Met an old lady who lived like a cuck
"What happened to her?" said I
Here was her poetic reprise
Don't live your life like a cuck
Today you might feel like a cuck
But that ain't no way to lead a life
That lady's gone now
It's sad really
Word is, she had red hair once
My wife had red hair once
Little Magazine, hold you in my thin red lines
(Always stay falling, Mag)
(Always stay falling, Mag)
Birds, birds, birds
Birds, birds, birds...
There was a wife here
Before there was a truck
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews