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One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide
Fiction. Renowned installation artist Frank Poole has embarked on his most ambitious project to date: an entire housing subdivision in the desert of Nevada, with every element painted stark white. By his side is his young wife Caitlin, his manager and confidante who keeps the volatile artist functioning from day to day. But as Frank grows increasingly anxious about his undertaking, Caitlin learns she is pregnant and begins to wonder what the future might hold for them both. At turns funny, tragic, triumphant and harrowing, ONE DAY SOON TIME WILL HAVE NO PLACE LEFT TO HIDE is a documentary film in prose. Structured as a "kinoroman," a novella-as-film-script-as novella, the text explores the nature of art, of watching and of being watched, of life put on display, all the while focusing on the day-to-day existence of one couple as they work through the incendiary materials of their lives together.
193 pages, Paperback
Published March 22, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 19, 2016
Well I wrote this book, didn't I?
March 23, 2016
[3.5, but rounded up]
Can we give a shout out to the best opening lines ever written? Luckily, the rest of this novella is about as bold as those first two sentences that confront you before the story begins. I was at first startled by the format of this delightfully sized little book, but soon came to fall in love with it. The whole thing is like a transcript of a documentary. Sort of. It's a transcript of a documentary, and yet it doesn't feel dry. It's lyrical, though sparsely written. Kiefer's writing first impressed me in The Animals and it didn't fail to impress me here. Every once in a while, the book references you as the viewer, or one of the characters looks at you/the camera. I wholly felt as if I were watching humans the entire time, so this experimental format was a success.
The story was at once intriguing. An artist, Frank Poole, who creates huge installations (like a replica of a Starbucks in a strip mall that is forever locked) begins work on his largest-scale project yet. In this project, he attempts to capture perfect moments in time through creating an entire, completely and perpetually sealed off neighborhood in the middle of the desert; all painted white.
As his project gets more difficult and unwieldy, we learn more about Frank and his dysfunctional childhood through interview. We also learn more about his young wife and manager, Caitlin, who gave up her own artistic dreams and is now pregnant. The experimental format and Kiefer's beautiful writing lend to some really visual scenes that show us important things about their relationship and Frank's worsening struggle with his project and life.
The novella is chock-full of poignant vignettes and bits of dialogue, but I'm still unsure about the ending. I actually ended up rereading most of the book to see if I was missing something. I liked it, but it felt a little too easy. I would love to hear what anybody else thought of it.
Overall, this is a good pick for the Weirdathon if you're looking for an experimental format. It's easily a book you can finish in one sitting.
Full review: Outlandish Lit
Let us be clear.
The time you spend reading these words
will not be returned.
Can we give a shout out to the best opening lines ever written? Luckily, the rest of this novella is about as bold as those first two sentences that confront you before the story begins. I was at first startled by the format of this delightfully sized little book, but soon came to fall in love with it. The whole thing is like a transcript of a documentary. Sort of. It's a transcript of a documentary, and yet it doesn't feel dry. It's lyrical, though sparsely written. Kiefer's writing first impressed me in The Animals and it didn't fail to impress me here. Every once in a while, the book references you as the viewer, or one of the characters looks at you/the camera. I wholly felt as if I were watching humans the entire time, so this experimental format was a success.
The story was at once intriguing. An artist, Frank Poole, who creates huge installations (like a replica of a Starbucks in a strip mall that is forever locked) begins work on his largest-scale project yet. In this project, he attempts to capture perfect moments in time through creating an entire, completely and perpetually sealed off neighborhood in the middle of the desert; all painted white.
As his project gets more difficult and unwieldy, we learn more about Frank and his dysfunctional childhood through interview. We also learn more about his young wife and manager, Caitlin, who gave up her own artistic dreams and is now pregnant. The experimental format and Kiefer's beautiful writing lend to some really visual scenes that show us important things about their relationship and Frank's worsening struggle with his project and life.
The novella is chock-full of poignant vignettes and bits of dialogue, but I'm still unsure about the ending. I actually ended up rereading most of the book to see if I was missing something. I liked it, but it felt a little too easy. I would love to hear what anybody else thought of it.
Overall, this is a good pick for the Weirdathon if you're looking for an experimental format. It's easily a book you can finish in one sitting.
Full review: Outlandish Lit
February 20, 2016
The film inside the text, to me, felt like a Kubrick film. Wide angles, articulated settings. Kubrick-ish, at any rate. Maybe closer to Malick but with more tension. For most of the story there is this unspoken tension, due to the superb subtlety crafted carefully by Kiefer. White light blinds you and characters laugh as the film you are watching from comes apart. It's a psychological kind of tragedy that could have so easily fallen apart, either into overdone melodrama or casual, lazy cliche, but this is neither. The story feels fresh. The length is perfect, and so is its form, a tense, multilayered and dreamy, intimate narrative.
Also, I read it on my Kindle, which added another level of contemporary commentary featured in the text. Time is being spent while you read this. Go and read the book and watch it for yourself.
Now I have to read his previous novel, The Animals. Eventually.
Also, I read it on my Kindle, which added another level of contemporary commentary featured in the text. Time is being spent while you read this. Go and read the book and watch it for yourself.
Now I have to read his previous novel, The Animals. Eventually.
March 15, 2016
A really great read. Dreamy. Made me want to do big art projects, live large, etc. I would love to see it as a small indie movie but maybe that would ruin the beautiful film it already put in my mind.
July 2, 2016
First things first: this book will not trap you in an alternate dimension. You know those stories where someone is drawn to that one weird book in the library and then gets trapped elsewhere and you always think you wouldn't have touched the creepy book to begin with, until suddenly you find you're drawn to this small white book with white letters on the cover and you can't stop reading even though you aren't sure that it's not that one weird book that will trap you forever in a space beyond time? Well, I was panting with relief by the end of it because I wasn't trapped in an alternate timeless dimension. And I presume you won't be, either.
Now to the book: I enjoyed the format: part script, part interview, part prose. The number of times the fourth wall is broken makes it pretty creepy at times. It was short but packed with emotion, even if it was mostly repressed. In fact, a lot of the story you have to read between the lines to get (where all the white spaces are?) because what is there is mostly hinted. Very early on, a character says "it's all lies", referring to something someone says, but by the ending of the book, you start to wonder just how much of it is a "lie". All throughout, there are fictional representations of so many environments and you start to wonder just how much of the "movie" itself is true. I mean, it's obviously fiction, but parts of it feel even more like a fabricated movie we're watching that perhaps isn't how the "real story" goes. Like it's our wish for how the story would end, come true on the "big screen". In some ways, it's as much an exploration of our own expectations as it is a novella.
I recommend this as a quick read for anyone who enjoys a departure from the usual format and doesn't mind getting drawn into a book. (Let's just hope not literally.)
Now to the book: I enjoyed the format: part script, part interview, part prose. The number of times the fourth wall is broken makes it pretty creepy at times. It was short but packed with emotion, even if it was mostly repressed. In fact, a lot of the story you have to read between the lines to get (where all the white spaces are?) because what is there is mostly hinted. Very early on, a character says "it's all lies", referring to something someone says, but by the ending of the book, you start to wonder just how much of it is a "lie". All throughout, there are fictional representations of so many environments and you start to wonder just how much of the "movie" itself is true. I mean, it's obviously fiction, but parts of it feel even more like a fabricated movie we're watching that perhaps isn't how the "real story" goes. Like it's our wish for how the story would end, come true on the "big screen". In some ways, it's as much an exploration of our own expectations as it is a novella.
I recommend this as a quick read for anyone who enjoys a departure from the usual format and doesn't mind getting drawn into a book. (Let's just hope not literally.)
March 14, 2016
How do I begin to describe this book, or how it made me feel? I read this slowly, devouring every word, and it felt like a transformative experience. It's about an installation artist named Frank Poole and his wife Caitlin who are attempting to turn an entire subdivision into an art piece. Painted all white, sealed away, and left to remain perfect forever. It is told in a rather unusual format: it is a scene-by-scene description of a documentary, and you know how I feel about strange book formatting. I just can’t resist it!
This is part a critique of modern American life, of how same-ness functions in society, of how every life and childhood is exactly the same yet profoundly different. It's a very meta book, because the narrator speaks to us in the second person, using "you" and "we" frequently. It creates both intimacy and unease, and makes One Day Soon a very meta novel (which is my jam). There are moments that resonated with me so clearly, moments of deep emotion and also horror. I loved every second of this and can't recommend it enough.
Full review here: http://www.lipstickandlibraries.com/2...
This is part a critique of modern American life, of how same-ness functions in society, of how every life and childhood is exactly the same yet profoundly different. It's a very meta book, because the narrator speaks to us in the second person, using "you" and "we" frequently. It creates both intimacy and unease, and makes One Day Soon a very meta novel (which is my jam). There are moments that resonated with me so clearly, moments of deep emotion and also horror. I loved every second of this and can't recommend it enough.
Full review here: http://www.lipstickandlibraries.com/2...
July 23, 2016
Although this book reminds me of the movie "Synecdoche, New York," it is not the same. I also thought of some stories by Claire Vaye Watkins. These are compliments, of course. Great work in the structure of the story, while we view the structures of Frank Poole's art installments. Revealing more and more on display as the camera pans through locations and time. A fresh perspective fitting for the era. Very well executed. I loved this book.
July 2, 2016
A novella that functions on multiple levels. Interesting meditation on art, families and time. This one may have cured my experimental fiction hangover with its 193 pages that are shockingly dense, dreamily impressionistic, and slightly creepy all at the same time.
December 30, 2023
it was a very interesting book. the writing style was really fun to read and some of the pages/parts i had to reread multiple times bc every page felt like there was a deeper meaning. i really like the consistent theme of time throughout the whole story. i want to try to understand it on a much deeper level bc the story of frank & caitlin poole is very captivating. i also like how as a reader we play a character of some sort in the story. it feels like instead of reading a book we're one of the people living that perfect white life watching people through a television screen. i *need* to understand this book on a deeper level
January 30, 2019
For such a dime-sized book, it packs a lot of what I could never recreate - the expansiveness of America. Previously said in other reviews, the mere wide angles, the Kubrich-ish vibes, the long scenes that seem to fill the pages, as if there enough space to fill up the pages with the grandiose beauty that is America.
What didn't satisfy me was the relationship between Frank and his wife. For lack of empathy, there were many fantastic scenes that created their intimacy, but all done blandly and convincingly enough just for a Television soap opera screen.
What didn't satisfy me was the relationship between Frank and his wife. For lack of empathy, there were many fantastic scenes that created their intimacy, but all done blandly and convincingly enough just for a Television soap opera screen.
March 23, 2019
I hardly know how to describe this work: a novella, yes, but also a biographical documentary, a screenplay, a write up of a mixed media installation of extraordinary proportion, a love story, a tragedy redeemed. Kiefer is an exceptional writer, and this small volume is crafted in a way I’ve never seen before, like poetry. My paltry words do not do it justice; you must read it for yourself to see what he’s done.
June 20, 2018
Usually "clever" is an insult for a novel, but not this time. Totally mesmerizing, and at the same time emotionally engaging. About memory and trauma and healing and art and love and babies and life.
December 29, 2016
Just when you think there's nothing new left to be written. Innovative yet familiar. Strange yet relatable. Christian's story breaks your heart then puts it back together.
November 17, 2017
Short on plot, but intentionally so given the form. Second work of Kiefer's I've read this week and I'm now a tremendous fan, but would only recommend this outing to "serious" readers.
March 13, 2019
Um, whoa.
February 1, 2017
One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide has the feel of a documentary screenplay about conceptual art, written through mystical, alluring language and short chapters that jump back and forth between abstract scenes and a narrative light on details. This combination, along with some second-person narration--which is difficult to pull off, by the way--immediately captivated me. I was hooked.
However, it doesn't quite pay off. I am left wanting so much more. The narrative of artist Frank Poole feels disconnected to the vignettes of his conceptual work on time, and the point of the novel, ultimately, is not driven home. I crave more of an overall thesis on the theme of time.
The second half fizzles out and ends abruptly. The ending was weak, especially when compared to the bewitching beginning.
I would love to read more Christian Kiefer. He is clearly a strong, imaginative writer, but the potential of One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide seems to be wasted, or at least not entirely flushed out at its conclusion.
***I received this book through Goodreads Giveaways.***
However, it doesn't quite pay off. I am left wanting so much more. The narrative of artist Frank Poole feels disconnected to the vignettes of his conceptual work on time, and the point of the novel, ultimately, is not driven home. I crave more of an overall thesis on the theme of time.
The second half fizzles out and ends abruptly. The ending was weak, especially when compared to the bewitching beginning.
I would love to read more Christian Kiefer. He is clearly a strong, imaginative writer, but the potential of One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide seems to be wasted, or at least not entirely flushed out at its conclusion.
***I received this book through Goodreads Giveaways.***
April 17, 2016
I have just completed Christian Kiefer's latest work, caught somewhere between novel and novella, or should I say inhaled it. Recommend it? Certainly, not to the casual reader who likes the fluffy cookie cutter offerings you most often find in your local list of top twenty works to read. No sir, but I certainly would recommend it to those who choose to immerse themselves in well-crafted tales where neither sentences or words seem to be wasted.
You can read the basic description of the plotline but this tale of Frank Poole, his life told through snapshots, flashbacks comes our way in intellectual as well as wildly inventive fashion. There are few authors who, when I finish their latest, make me want to live to read another. Those authors, in my house are folks like the late Pat Conroy, John Irving and Adam Johnson, whose Orphan Master's Son lifted the brainpan off my skull to make you realize great storytelling exists. Kiefer is knocking on that door......
You can read the basic description of the plotline but this tale of Frank Poole, his life told through snapshots, flashbacks comes our way in intellectual as well as wildly inventive fashion. There are few authors who, when I finish their latest, make me want to live to read another. Those authors, in my house are folks like the late Pat Conroy, John Irving and Adam Johnson, whose Orphan Master's Son lifted the brainpan off my skull to make you realize great storytelling exists. Kiefer is knocking on that door......
January 22, 2017
This little book was rather affecting. A structure of a documentary crew following around a conceptual artist and his business manager young wife, it reminded me of the film "Man Bites Dog". A meditation on memory and space (and the US landscape), set against the pressures on their relationship, as she has given up her own artistic ambitions to support his, that they are expecting a baby while he is still utterly immersed in his latest art work and the pressures that threaten to lead him to a relapse into alcoholism. All depicted with a minimalism that contrasts the scale of his artwork, although his works are a study of emptiness themselves. I did particularly enjoy the descriptions/depictions of his conceptual art.
March 28, 2016
I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway. I read some of the reviews before I started reading. At first I was unsure about the format. The format is just simply new to me. It's like reading a script to a documentary with dialogue. It's hard for me to explain, but I liked it. As I was reading I felt like I was watching a documentary about an installation artist named Frank Poole and his wife Caitlin. I enjoyed this and really wanted to finish it to see how it would end.
April 8, 2016
FTC Disclosure: I received this book free from Goodreads hoping I would review it.
September 28, 2023
Honest to god I’ve never pictured a story so clearly in my head. Kept me on my toes the whole time and definitely gave me a bit of existential dread, but hey that’s the point!
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews