969. Dead Air

Dead Air
Iain Banks
2002
Around 410 pages

After our streak of middling novels, it's nice to run into the welcoming arms of Iain Banks. Of course, he can be just as disturbing as the rest of them, but I enjoy his storytelling and characters so much that I don't mind.

We start on 9/11, with our protagonist Ken Nott hearing about it during a loft party in London. He is a shock jock and gets involved with a gangster's wife, so you feel on edge the entire novel, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Ken is a very flawed main character, but he is self-aware and real enough that I remained sympathetic through all his experiences. I can see why this didn't receive the widespread acclaim that his other works did, because it's a little less gimmicky than his previous works (I don't mean that in a bad way). But he really captured the zeitgeist of the early 2000s, and his prose is always rife with dark comedy, which I enjoy.

It will be interesting to observe the cultural aftershocks of 9/11 through literature. Sadly, this is our last Banks. I'm going to miss the fella, even though I am walking away from our relationship with some upsetting imagery. Here's my official ranking:

1. The Crow Road

2. The Wasp Factory

3. Dead Air

4. Complicity

5. The Player of Games

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Not well received by critics.

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