Thrum

by Jon Chaiim McConnell

The tenuous infrastructure of a society fueled by liquid electricity is on the verge of collapsing. thrum is the story of a city in a state of aneurysm, told by a man who believes he's fortunate enough to have escaped to the countryside, a woman without the means to, and the long history of obsessive excavation that, for centuries, has invited ruin.

161 pages, Paperback

First published July 14, 2021

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I’m not sure I understood everything about this three-pronged story, but I did find it inventive and the prose interesting. In the world of the novel, electricity flows and is collected like water, and trouble at its source propels the narrative. There’s an unnamed collective in dire straits; an unnamed family who leaves the city for the country, coming across others doing the same; and a named character recruited and trained to help find and fix the source. Two of the prongs come together at the end.

I acquired this book through an author giveaway. My thanks to him.

[Brooks Sterritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If the man concentrates for long enough he finds that he can see something of them overlaid across his vision, like an embossure or transparency."

[Donald Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In thrum electricity is liquified. No sockets for lights and televisions to take for granted. Power must be funneled like charged gasoline. This powerfully unique concept allows McConnell to craft a world that’s as current as it is borderline dystopian. Told mostly between alternating narratives: a man tries to escape the urban collapsing to the countryside with his family while elsewhere a woman can only go deeper towards the source. McConnell then creates a further juxtaposition between the impersonal—the man and his family remain nameless—and the personal—Gwendy’s family, coworkers, and neighbors are all named. Like the book itself, the known and the unknown collide with a rich density packed into so few pages.

thrum is electric.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather odd, otherworldly tale about a collapsing civilization whose supply of liquid electricity is literally drying up. One of the blurbs compares it to J.G. Ballard, whom I've never read but know enough about to see the similarities. The author's prose style is compelling, but the story overall felt too abstract and not quite grounded, even the more realist of the three narrative threads.