( Format : audiobook )
"Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick."
A book in three parts, tracing a father's decent into madness. Powerfully written in the first person, the reader is inside the head of the main protagonist, who is already troubled, depressed and delusional. He is unemployed, having been fired from his previous job as a paramedic and is having little success in finding a new job: he always seems to mess up any aplication. His wife works full time but they are in financial difficulties with the house likely to be repossessed soon. She is getting both desperately and resentful that her husband isn't taking on more of the responsibilities. And they have an eight years old daughter.
Part one really introduces us to the family and to the strange sound repetition resounding around in the lead protagonist's head. He also has time drop outs, forgetting appointments and generally losing parts of his day until his house burns down, he wakes in the hospital and is hailed an hero. Suddenly has everything he had always wanted: admiration and the love of his family. But then everything starts to go wrong again.
This first section is totally compelling. But the following two parts, charting his further disintegration defends into a mixture of madness and horror where truth and reality meld together both for the man himself and the reader.nAlthough still well written, it moves out of the realm of psychological and almost into the paranormal, jumping between places and ideas in an alarmingly disconcerting way to the final denouement at the end of the book. For this reader, it detracted from the original successes established earlier. Still a can't put down read but not fulfilling the excellence of the opening sections.
The soundtrack is cleverly done, with odd repetitive noises and phrases invading the background, mimicking those in the protagonist's head. But it is narrator, Michael Robbins, who truly makes the story come alive with his excellent interpretation of the husband struggling with his moods and confusions. His pace perfect, gentle, pleasing voice catches all the nuances of his situation as well as giving individual voice to all other characters. His was a really good and unsettling performance.
I am pleased to have listened to this book and have to thank the rights holder of House of Sand for freely gifting me a complimentary copy, at my request, via Audiobook Boom. The work was vivid, imprinting heavily in my mind as well as being thought provoking, frightening in it's earlier implications and, as such, rather sad. How well do we ever know anyone, even ourselves? However, the latter part, for me, pushed just that little bit too far, became too confusing and thus lessened the overall impact. Removing the larger part of section two would have improved this. Would I recommend it as it stands? Possibly, but only to someone who likes violence and blood mixed with over the top unreality included with their psychological thrills.