DRM's Reviews > 334

This confirms my belief that Disch is the best writer no one has ever heard of. The first half of this are somewhat interconnected short stories in the not too distant future which range from entertaining (Bodies), disorienting (Everyday Life), strangely sweet (Emancipation), chilling (Death of Socrates), and phenomenal (Angouleme). The second half are vignettes about a family living in a lower income housing project of a not too distant dystopian future New York. Its skilled kaleidoscopic presentation of this society's daily minutiae is sort of like a sci fi version of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying complete with frequent narrator changes. At times it can be very challenging with little explanation provided as to how this society came to be, but that's part of the reason why its so appealing: Disch allows the readers to make their own interpretations of all the raw data provided within 334's pages.