What do you think?
Rate this book
Anonymous
Anonymous is a series of stories. Stories are what make the world go round. And they're also what keep a group of prisoners going. Everyday, locked up in their cell, these prisoners spill their guts to the others through toilets and drain pipes, hoping to pass the time until they are able to see the light of day. Some of the stories, they disclose things that only locked up criminals should hear. The other stories, they explain why most people would agree that this group of misfits should be locked up.
- GenresFiction
210 pages, Kindle Edition
4 people are currently reading
1225 people want to read
About the author
Jason Tanamor
10 books51 followersJason Tanamor is the critically acclaimed author of the novels "Anonymous," "Drama Dolls," and "Vampires of Portlandia." His newest novel is a YA rom/com called "Love, Dance & Egg Rolls."
His writings have appeared in more than 250 publications. He's interviewed personalities such as Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Pete Rose, and Dane Cook, and has covered U.S. President Barack Obama.
Tanamor currently lives and works in the Portland, Oregon area.
His writings have appeared in more than 250 publications. He's interviewed personalities such as Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Pete Rose, and Dane Cook, and has covered U.S. President Barack Obama.
Tanamor currently lives and works in the Portland, Oregon area.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 28, 2020
Brought together by common circumstance, a group of disparate prison inmates invent a means to communicate with each other while being contained in their cells. By scooping the water from their toilet bowls a way is created for their voices to carry along the pipe system. Freed from being overseen, they revel in telling tales from their lives—their crimes, their relationships, their life philosophies. As the men vent, reminisce, boast, gloat, and regret, the stories serve the purpose of making their time spent incarcerated a little more bearable.
Tanamor is an author I’ve read before, and liked, and once again there is much to admire here. The novel is a collection of events retold from multitude points of view. The inmates take turns to hold attention or react, and the subjects of their conversations themselves are often featured to give an alternative perspective. This works extremely well, underlining the unreliability of accounts given in the lively atmosphere of prison talk. Tanamor has an easy rhythm to his style, humorous at times, and perfectly suited to the subject. As much as the men featured have been required to build a defensive distance from the world around them the author uses a knowing disconnect to reflect the world he presents.
The novel’s premise is a simplistic one, which in this case works to its advantage. Committing to the idea strongly creates a template for Tanamor to fully explore these characters. As the novel progresses, and the conversations continue, the inmates reveal the grim nature of their lives, an ironic fatalism driving them forwards. The talk becomes increasingly important to the men’s sanity, and by the end of the book it is revealed just how significant the conversations have actually been. A novel laced with grit. Good.
Tanamor is an author I’ve read before, and liked, and once again there is much to admire here. The novel is a collection of events retold from multitude points of view. The inmates take turns to hold attention or react, and the subjects of their conversations themselves are often featured to give an alternative perspective. This works extremely well, underlining the unreliability of accounts given in the lively atmosphere of prison talk. Tanamor has an easy rhythm to his style, humorous at times, and perfectly suited to the subject. As much as the men featured have been required to build a defensive distance from the world around them the author uses a knowing disconnect to reflect the world he presents.
The novel’s premise is a simplistic one, which in this case works to its advantage. Committing to the idea strongly creates a template for Tanamor to fully explore these characters. As the novel progresses, and the conversations continue, the inmates reveal the grim nature of their lives, an ironic fatalism driving them forwards. The talk becomes increasingly important to the men’s sanity, and by the end of the book it is revealed just how significant the conversations have actually been. A novel laced with grit. Good.
January 21, 2014
3,5 stars.
Gritty, crude literature about some seemingly randomly "thrown together" inmates who gather around the toilet bowl in their respective cells to tell each other things through the pipes. Confessions, of a sort, or just random sharing. For the longest time, I wondered what the connecting tissue of the set-up really was, but don't worry, it does become clear.
I enjoyed reading this book. Up until 70%, the pages just flew by without effort. Then something happened. I'm not sure what, but perhaps the general structure was disrupted, and the reading didn't go quite as smoothly anymore. The typos - which are of a sort that makes me believe the text was dictated and not typed - increased, and there were some cut off sentences here and there. (The book should be edited one more time and the mobi-format should be looked over.) I thought the story followed a red thread of sorts in the beginning, which (in my mind), focused on introducing the various crimes of these inmates and pointing out that thanks to this and that fellow, we now have this or that law, so it was all for the best. And, for some reason, Anonymous is the central person in it all. I liked that aspect. It was delightfully wrong. I wish that would have continued instead of veering off into a more in-depth study of two of the characters (I think that's where I got confused as to what the structure of the book was). There's probably a point to this change in rhythm, which finishes with the revelation in the end, but I got side-tracked and wasn't able to fully focus on it, and now it's all a bit blurry.
The book certainly has a very strong voice. Sometimes, this voice annoyed me, because I so recently read Chuck Palahniuk, and even though I haven't gone back to check his book, I believe the two authors use the same stylistic technique of "emphasis without emphasis" (my own terminology): blatant subject doubling using "it" that, when there is no contrast to be made, becomes stylistically prominent instead. Example: "The sun, it shines" (in the environment of "...as opposed to the clouds", the "it" would make this a contrasting sentence. On its own, it's just non-neutral language use.) I kind of like this technique, but I kept thinking of the Palahniuk book whenever it popped up, and that annoyed me.
One thing that confused me was one character's obsession with Herpes. I thought that was such a common thing in the US that it wasn't a big deal anymore (:P).
Gritty, crude literature about some seemingly randomly "thrown together" inmates who gather around the toilet bowl in their respective cells to tell each other things through the pipes. Confessions, of a sort, or just random sharing. For the longest time, I wondered what the connecting tissue of the set-up really was, but don't worry, it does become clear.
I enjoyed reading this book. Up until 70%, the pages just flew by without effort. Then something happened. I'm not sure what, but perhaps the general structure was disrupted, and the reading didn't go quite as smoothly anymore. The typos - which are of a sort that makes me believe the text was dictated and not typed - increased, and there were some cut off sentences here and there. (The book should be edited one more time and the mobi-format should be looked over.) I thought the story followed a red thread of sorts in the beginning, which (in my mind), focused on introducing the various crimes of these inmates and pointing out that thanks to this and that fellow, we now have this or that law, so it was all for the best. And, for some reason, Anonymous is the central person in it all. I liked that aspect. It was delightfully wrong. I wish that would have continued instead of veering off into a more in-depth study of two of the characters (I think that's where I got confused as to what the structure of the book was). There's probably a point to this change in rhythm, which finishes with the revelation in the end, but I got side-tracked and wasn't able to fully focus on it, and now it's all a bit blurry.
The book certainly has a very strong voice. Sometimes, this voice annoyed me, because I so recently read Chuck Palahniuk, and even though I haven't gone back to check his book, I believe the two authors use the same stylistic technique of "emphasis without emphasis" (my own terminology): blatant subject doubling using "it" that, when there is no contrast to be made, becomes stylistically prominent instead. Example: "The sun, it shines" (in the environment of "...as opposed to the clouds", the "it" would make this a contrasting sentence. On its own, it's just non-neutral language use.) I kind of like this technique, but I kept thinking of the Palahniuk book whenever it popped up, and that annoyed me.
One thing that confused me was one character's obsession with Herpes. I thought that was such a common thing in the US that it wasn't a big deal anymore (:P).
January 19, 2014
First off, thanks to Jason Tanamor for sending me a copy of this novel for review. I will try to be honest about it.
Anonymous is all about prisoners telling each other stories of their lives and crimes through the toilets, the drainage pipes carrying the sound to their cells. There is a conman, a scammer, an owner of a strip club, a pedophile, a stalker, a guy who has had sex with 150 women.
It's about as disgusting as it gets. Yet the brutal honesty with which this novel is told--where no shortcuts are taken, where truths are handed out casually and without a thought of a shudder--is what makes it appealing. Jason Tanamor writes with a voice that is reminiscent of Chuck Palahniuk, only less rough, less sharp, so the feeling one gets when he drives home a point is more like being punched repeatedly than being stabbed once. Here we have criminals, ashamed and unashamed, going through their personal histories and yelling them down waterless toilets. Their stories are neither refined nor wholesome. But they do have a single point which sort of gives them importance, or as Unknown would put it, 'relevance': they are the people who made laws get enacted, the people who made their neighbors more vigilant, the people who made changes in other people, because they are the proof of the sicknesses of the world and good folks must be wary of them. This twisted logic, sustained all throughout the novel, is entertaining, and admittedly thought-provoking.
However, as much as I liked the things I mentioned above, I felt as if there was no real plot to the novel. Stories kept going back to the past, and there are no events to move the action forward. Also, the author's style of constructing sentences was a bit repetitive. I understand that this reflects the attitude of the characters, but still, it was increasingly tiresome. There are a few technical errors as well.
Tanamor ends Anonymous in the true spirit of Palahniuk. Because I was bored towards the end of the novel, I kind of missed it, and I was another two paragraphs in when I realized that I had been, once again, not paying enough attention. My reaction was at first an enthusiastic 'Oh!' and then as I remembered Fight Club and Choke, the degree of enthusiasm decreased and I was left with a tired, forced, 'Oh.'
Still, I gave this book three stars because it was strange, funny, and at times disgusting (make that most of the time). It's the kind of story that people think about but never really get down to telling, and the fact that Tanamor accomplished it is in equal parts reckless and brave.
Anonymous is all about prisoners telling each other stories of their lives and crimes through the toilets, the drainage pipes carrying the sound to their cells. There is a conman, a scammer, an owner of a strip club, a pedophile, a stalker, a guy who has had sex with 150 women.
It's about as disgusting as it gets. Yet the brutal honesty with which this novel is told--where no shortcuts are taken, where truths are handed out casually and without a thought of a shudder--is what makes it appealing. Jason Tanamor writes with a voice that is reminiscent of Chuck Palahniuk, only less rough, less sharp, so the feeling one gets when he drives home a point is more like being punched repeatedly than being stabbed once. Here we have criminals, ashamed and unashamed, going through their personal histories and yelling them down waterless toilets. Their stories are neither refined nor wholesome. But they do have a single point which sort of gives them importance, or as Unknown would put it, 'relevance': they are the people who made laws get enacted, the people who made their neighbors more vigilant, the people who made changes in other people, because they are the proof of the sicknesses of the world and good folks must be wary of them. This twisted logic, sustained all throughout the novel, is entertaining, and admittedly thought-provoking.
However, as much as I liked the things I mentioned above, I felt as if there was no real plot to the novel. Stories kept going back to the past, and there are no events to move the action forward. Also, the author's style of constructing sentences was a bit repetitive. I understand that this reflects the attitude of the characters, but still, it was increasingly tiresome. There are a few technical errors as well.
Tanamor ends Anonymous in the true spirit of Palahniuk. Because I was bored towards the end of the novel, I kind of missed it, and I was another two paragraphs in when I realized that I had been, once again, not paying enough attention. My reaction was at first an enthusiastic 'Oh!' and then as I remembered Fight Club and Choke, the degree of enthusiasm decreased and I was left with a tired, forced, 'Oh.'
Still, I gave this book three stars because it was strange, funny, and at times disgusting (make that most of the time). It's the kind of story that people think about but never really get down to telling, and the fact that Tanamor accomplished it is in equal parts reckless and brave.
April 13, 2023
Gave up on this book 52 pages in, and I almost never give up on books. Especially when they're only just over 200 pages. Had a review on the inside that said something like "like Chuck Palahniuk and Charles Bukowski had a love child and it learned to talk..." 🙄 Should have put it down then.
August 10, 2015
I picked up 'Anonymous' during my first venture into the Goodreads world. I jumped into a group for my favorite genre, transgressive fiction, and Jason Tanamor stood out to me as an active member. I looked at his collection of books that he had written, and of them, the synopsis for 'Anonymous' seemed the most interesting.
The book is a collective conversation between inmates in a prison who communicate through the plumbing in the building by draining their toilets and shouting. As a narrative device, this worked really well; the inability to determine who was actually talking (further communicated by never naming the main characters anything other than 'Unknown' or 'Ambiguous') did the book a huge favor for it's ultimate conclusion. There are short moments where it becomes confusing on who is actually speaking, but it's never overwhelming, and again, it adds to the overall experience of the story.
The style of writing is interesting, and is definitely in the same vein as Chuck Palahniuk. Repetition is often used to really emphasize certain points, and it flows at times like a song or poem instead of a standard novel. This writing device is certainly a powerful one when used properly, and Tanamor nails it for the most part. There are isolated incidents in the story where the repetition almost goes on too long, like a bad 'Family Guy' joke, but it never detracts from the overall point of the book.
The only major complaint that I have is with the ultimate conclusion of the book. While I won't post any spoilers here, the characters themselves didn't really grow very much. They told their stories about how they ended up in prison, and while interesting, their opinion of how and why they were important to society never changed. Regardless, some of the inmates had powerful background tales that were entertaining enough to make you care about them and want to know more of who they used to be.
I would highly recommend this book if you are a fan of Chuck Palahniuk, stories that evaluate the seedier side of society, or something that is definitely different than what you'll find in a marketplace bloated with erotic romance and BDSM books. Some of the content is extreme and disturbing, but I'd much rather read a book that sticks with you for a while and makes you question your place in society rather than something you'll finish and forget in an afternoon. 'Anonymous' has staying power, and I can't wait to read more from Mr. Tanamor.
The book is a collective conversation between inmates in a prison who communicate through the plumbing in the building by draining their toilets and shouting. As a narrative device, this worked really well; the inability to determine who was actually talking (further communicated by never naming the main characters anything other than 'Unknown' or 'Ambiguous') did the book a huge favor for it's ultimate conclusion. There are short moments where it becomes confusing on who is actually speaking, but it's never overwhelming, and again, it adds to the overall experience of the story.
The style of writing is interesting, and is definitely in the same vein as Chuck Palahniuk. Repetition is often used to really emphasize certain points, and it flows at times like a song or poem instead of a standard novel. This writing device is certainly a powerful one when used properly, and Tanamor nails it for the most part. There are isolated incidents in the story where the repetition almost goes on too long, like a bad 'Family Guy' joke, but it never detracts from the overall point of the book.
The only major complaint that I have is with the ultimate conclusion of the book. While I won't post any spoilers here, the characters themselves didn't really grow very much. They told their stories about how they ended up in prison, and while interesting, their opinion of how and why they were important to society never changed. Regardless, some of the inmates had powerful background tales that were entertaining enough to make you care about them and want to know more of who they used to be.
I would highly recommend this book if you are a fan of Chuck Palahniuk, stories that evaluate the seedier side of society, or something that is definitely different than what you'll find in a marketplace bloated with erotic romance and BDSM books. Some of the content is extreme and disturbing, but I'd much rather read a book that sticks with you for a while and makes you question your place in society rather than something you'll finish and forget in an afternoon. 'Anonymous' has staying power, and I can't wait to read more from Mr. Tanamor.
January 16, 2014
"Anonymous" is about a bunch of prisoners telling stories in their cells to pass time. What's unique about the story is how they do it - they bail the water from their toilets and yell down the bowl. Unique, right?
The highlight of the novel is how the ending ties everything together. You don't see it coming at all. I thought it could have been spread out more than it was but Tanamor did an amazing job fooling you. He is like a magician - divert your attention while pulling the rabbit out of the hat.
The main characters are Unknown and Stud. They play a key role in holding the story together. I compare "Anonymous" with Chuck Palahniuk's "Haunted" in the sense that there are a bunch of short stories intertwined within a main storyline.
"Anonymous" is written like a song. It has a cadence and many lines are repeated like a chorus to reinforce the horror that is going on within each prisoner.
I highly recommend "Anonymous" to anyone interested in stories like "V for Vendetta," "Fight Club," "Haunted," and HBO's "Oz." This novel will mess with you and stay with you long after you've finished.
The highlight of the novel is how the ending ties everything together. You don't see it coming at all. I thought it could have been spread out more than it was but Tanamor did an amazing job fooling you. He is like a magician - divert your attention while pulling the rabbit out of the hat.
The main characters are Unknown and Stud. They play a key role in holding the story together. I compare "Anonymous" with Chuck Palahniuk's "Haunted" in the sense that there are a bunch of short stories intertwined within a main storyline.
"Anonymous" is written like a song. It has a cadence and many lines are repeated like a chorus to reinforce the horror that is going on within each prisoner.
I highly recommend "Anonymous" to anyone interested in stories like "V for Vendetta," "Fight Club," "Haunted," and HBO's "Oz." This novel will mess with you and stay with you long after you've finished.
January 15, 2014
Downloaded this book as a free Kindle giveaway. Thought the story was intriguing. Glad I did. This is a hidden gem that needs to be discovered. Sure, there are dark topics and questionable dialogues between characters, but they all add to the intenseness (is that a word?) of the plot.
There are some writing flaws - grammatical - but overall this novel is an excellent read. It flows easily with its prose. I was only intending to read a couple chapters at a time but ended up finishing it in a couple days.
I would have given this a 5 but 5-star novels are for perfect books. This book wasn't perfect; it was damn near!
'Anonymous' is worth the time.
There are some writing flaws - grammatical - but overall this novel is an excellent read. It flows easily with its prose. I was only intending to read a couple chapters at a time but ended up finishing it in a couple days.
I would have given this a 5 but 5-star novels are for perfect books. This book wasn't perfect; it was damn near!
'Anonymous' is worth the time.
April 17, 2016
It was a book with unusual characters; Unknown, Stud, Nose and Tex for example. They are all in prison telling their story. Unknown is a con-artist. The book is not something that I would pick to read, but to have won the book, **** 3 1/2 stars....not a 4 star for me.
January 17, 2014
One word - Intense! There are great lessons to be learned in this book. It's not only entertaining but the stories give you something to think about.
Read
August 5, 2016My comments on this book were communicated directly to the author, with thanks for allowing me to read an advance copy.
July 24, 2014
Ending was a little predictable to me but I loved the way it was written. I really felt like I was seeing into someone's mind.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews