There is No Decent Place to Stand

by Jeremiah Prenn

256 pages, Paperback

Published March 27, 2026

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeremiah Prenn’s genre-defying novel, There is No Decent Place to Stand, engages in sophisticated forms of literary hijinks as it tells the story of a young man entangled in political intrigue who is searching for redemption and renewal. The story is set primarily in Bunolle, a fictional European nation ruled by an elderly queen whose health is failing. The welfare of Zachary Woodbine (known as “Throat”) is of great concern to his friends. This is because Zachary has snapped a photograph that some in the regime consider a threat to national security. To backtrack, the queen’s son and heir to the throne, Prince Flenard, is a ruthless schemer and unrepentant womanizer. In a high-spirited moment, Zachary thought that taking a photo of Flenard kissing his latest mistress would be an amusing prank. However, when word about the photo starts making the rounds, it turns out that Flenard couldn’t care less that it reveals him in the company of a female friend. More worrying to the heir apparent is that anyone looking closely would be able to identify an associate of Flenard’s lurking in the background: an intelligence operative who was widely assumed to be dead. In the wake of this incident, Flenard, instead of having Zachery arrested or otherwise punished, recruits him into his clandestine political organization, known as the Black Hand. Receiving an outsized salary to work as a fixer, enforcer and occasional courier, Zachary finds himself ejecting tenants from properties Flenard wants to purchase, making deliveries to Flenard’s political opponents—deliveries that augur nothing good for the recipient—and encouraging adversaries to quiet their criticisms. This employment nets Zachary more money than he knows what to do with but takes him away from his friends for lengthy periods (hence their concern) and eats at his conscience, because he knows he’s performing nefarious duties for a man with no moral compass. But in There is No Decent Place to Stand, the manner of the telling is as important—maybe more important—than the events summarized above. Prenn divides the novel into three sections. In part one, “The Friends,” each of Zachary’s five friends relate from their unique viewpoint developments in their relationship with him, describing their misgivings, their own personal troubles, their encounters, where they go and where they end up. Part two, “The Family,” is narrated in several sections by Flenard and others in his circle and provides the reader with a deeper understanding of the shady politics Zachary is navigating. It’s only in part three, “Himself,” that we hear from Zachary, though this section is told in the third person by an omniscient narrator. Moreover, much of the prose is composed in a relentless headlong rush—a firehose of information coming at the reader in a robust and decidedly eccentric style that is immersive and absorbing for sure, brimming with elusive connections and bracing non-sequiturs, and which, perhaps for added effect, maybe just for fun, occasionally veers off the path of realism into the realm of stream-of-consciousness. All of this is to say that There is No Decent Place to Stand is a novel that does not let the reader off easily. Jeremiah Prenn has created a dazzling if puzzling work of fiction that examines an exceedingly dangerous modern world from a variety of perspectives. Prenn’s characters are pawns of evolving circumstance, responding to forces beyond their control, compelled to make choices when they don’t have all the information, pushed to act amidst narrowing options. Zachary’s photograph was supposed to be a harmless stunt, but its ramifications are felt far and wide, shattering the bond among a group of close friends, forcing some to change the direction their lives will take. The story that Jeremiah Prenn has conjured is never straightforward, but its urgency feels very real, much like life itself.

[JPD · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not used to writing a review, as I read this in January, but I will do my best, as I took many notes while reading. There Is No Decent Place To Stand by Jeremiah Prenn is a novel in three parts titled The Friends (David, Burton, Paloma, Gelle, Josie), The Family (Aftan, Flenard, Flenard’s Driver, Eidenmann), and Himself (???) and revolves around a character names Zachary Woodbine, or Throat as the characters tend to call him more often than the former.

Zachary finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time (or was he?), taking a photo of some possible political scandal, which puts all our characters into his orbit. Each character has its own voice, which, in my opinion, is challenging to achieve. David has nothing really going for him outside of Paloma and is hatable by design. If you feel the book rubs you the wrong way, I feel it will dissipate after you arrive in Burton. Personally, Paloma is my favorite. (“Everyone thinks they can be a writer. It makes me sick, not because they shouldn’t be, but because I am just like them.”)

The way the mystery plays out among the numerous characters in Bunolle, I feel, is excellently coordinated, even looking back on the novel now. I can say I read this alongside Savage Detectives, but there are similarities in how the reader receives information, or, as I could argue, to Foucault’s Pendulum. Even at completion, many loose ends remain untied, making for a compelling reading experience that many will find pleasurable and ponder far into the future.

There Is No Decent Place To Stand is available now at Galleon Books:

https://galleonbooks.ca/our-list/