The Visor

by Peter J. Jones

"Funny...Horrifying...Astonishing...Unrelentingly gripping. A surreal journey through trauma and its aftermath.""The Old Tailor had stared at the space left by the young woman as she left the workshop, and it had seemed as though there was a faint trail left by those eyes like car headlights on a slow film photograph taken at night...He had not believed such a thing was possible..."A man walks alone out of Gare du Nord, Paris. In the final years of the human era, he seeks anonymity and refuge amongst the lost of Paris, Montmartre, hiding from the consequences of a terrifying past and from himself most of all. Gradually piecing together his relationship with an extraordinary cast of characters and worlds, we discover a Paris, and indeed a Europe, that is both fantastic and worryingly familiar. Waters, walls and temperatures are rising, and time is literally out of control...Whether one thinks of The Visor as fantasy, science fiction, crime thriller, historical drama or heart-breaking tragedy, events come thick and fast across the many worlds and multiple times of this rich and troubling novel. At its heart is a Is heroism a choice or an obligation and if it is the latter and were you to somehow avoid that obligation, would you ever truly recover?The Visor's style has been compared to Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow", Hemingway and J. G. Ballard. With such a range of comparisons, The Visor promises nothing less than an imaginary tour de force guaranteed to leave the reader wanting more.

694 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 26, 2019

Reviews

[Deborah K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a big, multi-genre, multi-plot, surreal novel that deals with trauma and its aftermath. The style is literary, experimental in places, always attentive to the musicality of language even in the most horrific scenes. One of the most ambitious and creative books I've read in a long time, the story weaves together British and American expats in Paris in the early 2000's with Eastern European tailors and spies during WWII and its aftermath, and a few other settings I won't mention here because to do so would be to spoil the delightful twists that await. It's wonderful when a book can contain both horror and heart in a collection of multi-faceted characters (in this case, who may or may not be the same people in different versions of reality). Highly recommended if you enjoy a challenging, surreal book that doesn't wrap everything up with a neat little bow and leaves the perfect amount of mystery intact...

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dark novel that at times was a bit confusing. Certainly “multi narrative, multi genre”.

[Peter Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review copied from Amazon:

I thought this was really excellent. It is incredibly ambitious. The time- and gender-hopping reminded a little of David Mitchell. I though the writing was just excellent. There were numerous passages that I re-read for the pleasure of it.
But it was the ferry story that got me the most. The level of tension was almost unbearable. Knowing what was coming and the long build up! Really impressive stuff!