31. Available Dark – Elizabeth Hand

Thomas Dunne/ Minotaur Books, 2012

246 pgs.

for: adults

Rating:  Mixed feelings, but I liked it….quite a bit, after much thought

Setting:  NYC for a short time, then Finland for a bit, the rest in Iceland in winter…probably December, when there’s almost no daylight, just gray light for a few hours or total darkness.

First line/s:  There had been more trouble, as usual.  In November I’d headed north to an island off the coast of Maine, hoping to score an interview that might jump-start the cold wreckage of my career as a photographer, dead for more than thirty years.  Instead, I got sucked into some seriously bad shit.  The upshot was that I was now back in the city, almost dead broke, with winter coming down and even fewer prospects than when I’d left weeks earlier.  I dealt with this the way I usually did:  I bought a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, cranked my stereo, and got hammered.”

OSS:  Photographer Cass Neary, user of Jack Daniels and meth and uppers and downers and anything she can get her hands on, goes to Finland to authenticate a series of unbelievable photos; then gets pulled into a series of murders all revolving around Viking mythology and Black Metal music

I figured out that the references to Maine, her bad experiences there, and some other references that she had to stay low, were references to the first book about Cass/Cassandra Neary called Generation Loss.  Because of the island off the coast of Maine setting (! ! !) I do plan to find it and read it this summer.

This was really quite fascinating, incredibly dark, and thought-provoking.  Because I spent 24 hours in Iceland (in August, when the sun hardly went down), I’ve always wondered about winter there. Cheap flights in winter, horribly expensive ones in summer. Well, this is a view that I would never, ever see or think about as an average tourist.  The current punk scene, I guess you’d call it.  But Cass – and all her acquaintance’s fascination with death and its mythologies, is a pretty dark trip for someone who thrives on sunshine…..(me)……  This is one of those books that teach you, make you think outside the box, helps you make connections you might never have made, ever.  And, ultimately, I liked it.