September Read (for Appettite Book Club): Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet

On the one hand, the book feels like an elaborate practical joke. Like most of the members of the book club, I worried I had missed a significant personality and moment in pop culture.  Now it occurs to me that the arrival of the notebooks is not much different to Harold, the canine writer of Bunnicula, and that the preface is similar Howe's letter of intro.

The spooling of the story draws parallels (for me) to Guy Debord and the Situationists. I mean, the very lack of 'qualifications' are what makes the character of  Colin Braithwaite qualified.  Additionally, the female character of Angela/Rebecca (and maybe Veronica; I mean, is she even real in this fictious world? Is that where the book's cleverness is hidden: in the stilted academic yet telenovela quality of the layers? I have not decided but upon reflection of my initial dissatisfaction, it has kept me wondering about perception, truths in fictions, and the levels we'll go to delude ourselves and others. It's clear that Braithwaite is an old-school narcissist but is there more? And do I care enough to read it again, more closely?  It feels like it has the potential to be as damagingly informative as The Music of Chance was when I read it in my 20th year.  It also feels like a distanced recap, as I am pretty sure my earlier selves would have adjusted hem lines, been paralyzed with confused want in the face of such imagined power being held by another.