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Dodge and Burn
We were told that our mother's life was terminated by killer bees while vacationing in San Marcos, Mexico, with Dr Vargas at his family home.
After her mother dies in bizarre circumstances, heiress Eugenie Lund is abducted by Dr Vargas, a charismatic Svengali-like figure who educates her according to his own philosophy, an esoteric blend of anthropology and psychiatry. Isolated from outside influences, Eugenie's life is spent on the run across North America and Europe, existing on the fringes of society, always trying to keep one step ahead of her past. Taking in Mexico, Las Vegas, and the underground rave scene, Dodge and Burn is a psychedelic road trip recounted in beautifully crafted prose that pulses with frenetic energy.
Inspired by the likes of Carlos Castaneda and Hunter S. Thompson, this is an exciting, iconoclastic debut novel from a remarkable new voice.
After her mother dies in bizarre circumstances, heiress Eugenie Lund is abducted by Dr Vargas, a charismatic Svengali-like figure who educates her according to his own philosophy, an esoteric blend of anthropology and psychiatry. Isolated from outside influences, Eugenie's life is spent on the run across North America and Europe, existing on the fringes of society, always trying to keep one step ahead of her past. Taking in Mexico, Las Vegas, and the underground rave scene, Dodge and Burn is a psychedelic road trip recounted in beautifully crafted prose that pulses with frenetic energy.
Inspired by the likes of Carlos Castaneda and Hunter S. Thompson, this is an exciting, iconoclastic debut novel from a remarkable new voice.
256 pages, Paperback
Published July 21, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 23, 2022
(Review originally published on my blog, August 2016)
Heiress Eugenie Lund is missing. This we know from the newspaper article that opens Dodge and Burn, reporting that a manuscript, ostensibly Eugenie's work, has been found in a Spanish cave. The ensuing extract reveals the fate of Eugenie and her sister Camille: after their mother's death in a freak accident (involving killer bees), they were adopted/kidnapped by the sadistic Dr Vargas, who 'educated' them – in his own arcane manner – and experimented on them. But the meat of the story takes place some years after the sisters' escape from Vargas, with Eugenie recently married to a Frenchman named Benoît who has preternatural fighting skills.
The tone for Eugenie's quest to be reunited with Camille is set when she pauses, briefly, to sum up her (their?) predicament thus: 'Who would have guessed that all of this tragedy would befall us, that we would lose one another and I would journey so far and wide and come to this spot, newly married, running from casino mafia and the law?' At first, I found this bad and stagy, but I later came to see this voice as part of the book's charm. Eugenie and Benoît's flight becomes an acid-soaked misadventure across several states, with competing aims: on the one hand, to lie low; on the other, to find Camille and ultimately kill Vargas. Eugenie shifts in and out of consciousness and, accordingly, in and out of different realities, seeing visions and finding clues. She has spiritual and psychic connections with Camille and believes these can help them reunite, but when she's constantly tripping, can anything she says be trusted?
The story bursts with colour and energy. Characters are geniuses or outrageous eccentrics, all of them larger than life. Every page – every sentence, even – fizzes with vivid descriptions, unusual word choices, rapid-fire exposition and movie-worthy dialogue. The plot takes 'far-fetched' to new heights and the narrative barely pauses for breath in 240 pages. If Dodge and Burn was food, it would be one of those rainbow piñata cakes, but with pills and tabs of acid in the middle instead of sweets.
It's exciting and great fun, but it can also be absolutely exhausting. It's best read in quick bursts. At points, Madsen's writing feels like it's been over-revised into artificial stiffness and needs to be a little looser; at others like it could do with more editing (I can't believe someone with Eugenie's intellect would get 'lay' and 'lie' mixed up, and I cringed hard every time I encountered 'off of', probably my least favourite pairing of words in the English language). And of course there's Eugenie and Benoît. Picture Sailor and Lula from Wild at Heart, but with higher IQs; they're constantly pawing at each other and using annoying pet names; I have to admit I would've liked the book better without all their mutual simpering.
So it's not perfect. But it is delightfully different, and it's impossible not to get caught up in its vibrancy and enthusiasm. Though Dodge and Burn has flaws, it's difficult to dwell on any one of them for long, as another outlandish twist is sure to come along and sweep you up in its madness. It also ends on something of a cliffhanger, with one potential explanation for Eugenie's narrative dismissed before it can be properly explored. Some may find this terribly frustrating, but I thought it was a clever move that suited the flighty nature of the story and its narrator.
This is the first book from independent publisher Dodo Ink, and its sparky originality bodes well for what's next.
NB: I backed Dodo Ink's Kickstarter campaign, but the book I chose as my reward was the forthcoming The Eleventh Letter by Tom Tomazewski; I bought my copy of Dodge and Burn.
Heiress Eugenie Lund is missing. This we know from the newspaper article that opens Dodge and Burn, reporting that a manuscript, ostensibly Eugenie's work, has been found in a Spanish cave. The ensuing extract reveals the fate of Eugenie and her sister Camille: after their mother's death in a freak accident (involving killer bees), they were adopted/kidnapped by the sadistic Dr Vargas, who 'educated' them – in his own arcane manner – and experimented on them. But the meat of the story takes place some years after the sisters' escape from Vargas, with Eugenie recently married to a Frenchman named Benoît who has preternatural fighting skills.
The tone for Eugenie's quest to be reunited with Camille is set when she pauses, briefly, to sum up her (their?) predicament thus: 'Who would have guessed that all of this tragedy would befall us, that we would lose one another and I would journey so far and wide and come to this spot, newly married, running from casino mafia and the law?' At first, I found this bad and stagy, but I later came to see this voice as part of the book's charm. Eugenie and Benoît's flight becomes an acid-soaked misadventure across several states, with competing aims: on the one hand, to lie low; on the other, to find Camille and ultimately kill Vargas. Eugenie shifts in and out of consciousness and, accordingly, in and out of different realities, seeing visions and finding clues. She has spiritual and psychic connections with Camille and believes these can help them reunite, but when she's constantly tripping, can anything she says be trusted?
The story bursts with colour and energy. Characters are geniuses or outrageous eccentrics, all of them larger than life. Every page – every sentence, even – fizzes with vivid descriptions, unusual word choices, rapid-fire exposition and movie-worthy dialogue. The plot takes 'far-fetched' to new heights and the narrative barely pauses for breath in 240 pages. If Dodge and Burn was food, it would be one of those rainbow piñata cakes, but with pills and tabs of acid in the middle instead of sweets.
It's exciting and great fun, but it can also be absolutely exhausting. It's best read in quick bursts. At points, Madsen's writing feels like it's been over-revised into artificial stiffness and needs to be a little looser; at others like it could do with more editing (I can't believe someone with Eugenie's intellect would get 'lay' and 'lie' mixed up, and I cringed hard every time I encountered 'off of', probably my least favourite pairing of words in the English language). And of course there's Eugenie and Benoît. Picture Sailor and Lula from Wild at Heart, but with higher IQs; they're constantly pawing at each other and using annoying pet names; I have to admit I would've liked the book better without all their mutual simpering.
So it's not perfect. But it is delightfully different, and it's impossible not to get caught up in its vibrancy and enthusiasm. Though Dodge and Burn has flaws, it's difficult to dwell on any one of them for long, as another outlandish twist is sure to come along and sweep you up in its madness. It also ends on something of a cliffhanger, with one potential explanation for Eugenie's narrative dismissed before it can be properly explored. Some may find this terribly frustrating, but I thought it was a clever move that suited the flighty nature of the story and its narrator.
This is the first book from independent publisher Dodo Ink, and its sparky originality bodes well for what's next.
NB: I backed Dodo Ink's Kickstarter campaign, but the book I chose as my reward was the forthcoming The Eleventh Letter by Tom Tomazewski; I bought my copy of Dodge and Burn.
July 20, 2016
This first publication from new press Dodo Ink is simultaneously a fable about two sisters Eugenie and Camille who live under the control of a sadistic stepfather doctor, a mystery about a lost heiress, a psychedelic road trip about two lovers on the run from gangsters/the law and a mystical meditation on space/time/being. It’s energetic, feverish writing takes you on a spectacularly wild journey.
Read my full review of Dodge and Burn by Seraphina Madsen on LonesomeReader
Read my full review of Dodge and Burn by Seraphina Madsen on LonesomeReader
April 5, 2018
A great twisting tale about siblings who are inextricably trapped with an adoptive father figure who trains them in the dark arts.
This magical realist story translates as a Kerouacian road trip, full of rituals, tribal gatherings and trances.
With the resurgence in witches and a modern interest in Witch craft, this book is a great fictional go to.
This magical realist story translates as a Kerouacian road trip, full of rituals, tribal gatherings and trances.
With the resurgence in witches and a modern interest in Witch craft, this book is a great fictional go to.
September 19, 2017
Part road trip, part acid trip, this book was wild.
January 1, 2017
Dodge and Burn is the first of three books that I've pledged for via Dodo Ink's Kickstarter campaign and I'm sorry to say that it really isn't my cup of tea. In the past, I have enjoyed reading about Paganism and Wicca, so it's not that I'm particularly averse to reading about the protagnists' occult practices. To me, the way they ramble on about their magical knowledge just felt a bit forced. I was unable to sympathise with any of the characters (not even Maynard Grady, who remained two-dimensional and whose fate did not need any resolving) and found myself skimming the pages, skipping past Eugenie's and Ben's descriptions of their adventures and hardships together. I'm sure I used to be just as terribly self-absorbed and self-important in my teens and early twenties and maybe someone should've slapped talked slapped some sense into me back then. That pretty much sums up how I feel about the people in this book.
September 10, 2016
Difficult one this. Always hard to strike a balance between rating according to how good a book is, and how much I personally enjoyed it.
It's not, on the whole, my kind of thing. The dream-logic, the drugs, the rave scene, the mysticism, not really the kind of storytelling I get a lot out of, and the underlying narrative doesn't, in all honesty, amount to a whole lot. And yet, between the many and varied cultural references, the engaging characters and the highly readable prose (always impressed with a book that can describe scenes with highly fantastical elements in a way that nevertheless makes them easy to visualise), I have to conclude that reading it wasn't unenjoyable. Perhaps not for me then, but you can't love everything.
It's not, on the whole, my kind of thing. The dream-logic, the drugs, the rave scene, the mysticism, not really the kind of storytelling I get a lot out of, and the underlying narrative doesn't, in all honesty, amount to a whole lot. And yet, between the many and varied cultural references, the engaging characters and the highly readable prose (always impressed with a book that can describe scenes with highly fantastical elements in a way that nevertheless makes them easy to visualise), I have to conclude that reading it wasn't unenjoyable. Perhaps not for me then, but you can't love everything.
November 2, 2016
Really enjoyed reading this book, it was incredibly fresh and different from most other books I read and yet the lost then found again travel diary structure somehow made it very familiar and comfortable. For once I was left wondering what was going to happen next, as the story winds through mental diversions and real red herrings in the unravelling of the whereabouts of the main characters missing sister. Some people may find it too fantastical, but that was a plus for me. Very proud to have supported Dodo Ink so they could produce this as one of their first books.
March 6, 2021
3,5
Hunter S. Thompson "on the road" into magic occultism.
Quite an entertaining read, but could have been more refined. The "magic" doesn't always takes of and the drugs/sex descriptions which are silver-lining througout are sometimes rather flat.
If quality of writing and building of storyline of some parts (mainly 1st part and ending) could be maintained throughout the whole book, it would have been outstanding.
Hunter S. Thompson "on the road" into magic occultism.
Quite an entertaining read, but could have been more refined. The "magic" doesn't always takes of and the drugs/sex descriptions which are silver-lining througout are sometimes rather flat.
If quality of writing and building of storyline of some parts (mainly 1st part and ending) could be maintained throughout the whole book, it would have been outstanding.
October 19, 2017
Psychedelic road trip through America and Europe. I loved this book, it has plenty of references to '90s culture and substance use - which I can related to. In a similar van to the '50s/'60s beat poets books of trips across America.
March 20, 2017
I've never read anything like this before! It's so psychedelic it almost makes you feel like you're on drugs yourself! Really amazing writing and fantastic ending.
October 21, 2016
Hard to resist the charm of this book, it's like a teenage mash up of the 'nouvelle vague', on the road, Hunter S Thompson and the occult. Would make a great graphic novel.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews