After James

by Michael Helm

Shortlisted for the 2016 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize

Globe & Mail "Best Canadian Fiction of 2016"

This breakout novel from Giller Prize finalist Michael Helm is a genre-bending work of astonishing vision and a dazzling story of our times.

A neuroscientist retreats to a secluded cabin in the woods, intending to blow the whistle on a pharmaceutical company and its creativity drug gone wrong. A failed poet is lured to Rome as a "literary detective" to decode the work of a mysterious Internet poet who seems to write about murders with precise knowledge of private details. On the heels of a life crisis, a virologist discovers her identity has been stolen by a conceptual artist in whose work someone always goes missing. After James is an audacious, masterful novel, told in three connected parts, each gesturing toward a type of genre fiction -- the gothic horror, the detective novel, and the apocalyptic. As the novel unfolds in great cities, remote regions, and deadly borderlands, it weaves connections both explicit and subtle, pulling us deeper into a greater mystery that has come to define our times. Gorgeously written, alive with intelligence and wit, full of adventure and suspense, After James confirms Michael Helm's reputation as one of the most electrifying writers of his generation

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Canada, Thriller, Audiobook, Speculative Fiction

MP3 CD

First published September 13, 2016

Reviews

[Always Pouting · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is divided into three parts, part one follows a neuroscientist who is hiding out after things go wrong with the clinical trial for her new miracle drug, one that opens up the mind in ways never even imagined before. In part two a graduate student drop out is hired to be a literary detective by a man after leaving a comment on the blog of a poet that has started to gain recognition on the internet, and whose poetry seems to speak to people because of its connection to their own life tragedies. Part three is the story of a virologist whose identity is stolen by a performance artist. The stories echo one another and give one the uneasy sense of being tied together without any clear connection.

Personally I went back and forth between whether I was going to give this book three stars or four because I really really loved the writing and the themes in the book especially when I started reading it and was still only up to part one. Then when I got to part two I started to lose interest because I had no clue what the fuck was happening. Again I don't read summaries before I read the book so I just went into this without any idea that the parts were connected to one another and so I was just thrown into this disjointed story lines without realizing. As I kept reading part two I started to get into the story again because it did seem like the two parts were connected and I got excited because I was like what the heck is going on and I couldn't wait to see how the author managed to resolve this plot line he was creating but then I get to part three and it's completely separate from the other two parts and then I just got really angry.

I really really thought this could be one of my favorite books ever especially while reading part one and I got so into the story and I even kept reading even though at first part two was so boring I wanted to die. I got my hopes up when part two picked up because it falsely seemed to have some connection to part one and just it literally was awful trying to get through that last part. Also not only did I not get resolution for anything, each of the parts seemed to be so much more boring than the last which isn't great if you want to keep the reader reading.

Also I didn't get the whole point of the three separate parts, was the whole point just to be eerie and play at some multiuniverse? It really didn't work for me and the parts didn't tie in well and I'm mad because I was actually really loving the book for at least about half the time I was reading it which is so frustrating.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

A space had opened near the entryway and now she saw on the wall the title for this part of the show. After James. The words dropped inside her for a few moments before going off. She'd told no one the name of her lost child. She said something aloud. The room seemed to move at great speed.

After James is a mindbending, genre-busting novel that is actually composed of three distinct novellas: Alice After James, which is a Gothic horror story; Decor, a detective thriller; and The Boy in the Water, so-called “apocalyptic fiction”. With themes and situations that echo throughout – fathers and daughters, lost children and dogs, a return to nature, plague and extinction, the locus of creativity – author Michael Helm is, on the one hand, encouraging the reader to make a cohesive storyline out of the disparate parts, but on the other, consistently makes the point that it is a mere quirk of the human brain to create connections where none are actually present. In the moment, the reading experience felt uneven as I enjoyed some characters and situations more than others, and after finishing, I can only sit here, mentally exhausted, and marvel, “What was that?” The book opens with a prologue that felt pure Cormac McCarthy:

The dog kept to the (stream) bed, where the vapours were strongest, crazed into the firstness of things. He had come a long way and had organized the scents as they recurred along the route until a new one came on the air and he found himself moving into the leaves. He was at the source and digging before he understood that the form set into the ground was human. The discovery confused him and he backed off the shape and barked and continued barking until the smell sent him forward again in a wonderment half-full of forgetting, and when he followed up from the human hand along the arm and then uncovered the muddy head, the discovery was new again and he ran up out of the trees and stopped and circled back down, then came up a second time and a third. At some point he lowered onto his belly and looked for a long while in the direction of the humanform until a shortened whimper escaped him, the sound sending him to his feet barking again, hearing the strangeness of his sounding in the air of this new place.

I loved this so much that I was a little disappointed when this style wasn't carried over into the first of the novellas, but as the main character Alice – gone to ground after exposing her drug company's wrongdoing – reads a Henry James ghost story and discovers a warning from her new landlord about an unsavoury neighbour, the atmosphere became incredibly tense: I was so interested and the situation became so foreboding that I wanted to stop reading and I couldn't stop reading; even when I couldn't perfectly understand what the author was trying to convey:

When she came around the barn she did so without fear or with fear secured by her conviction and watching her so that Shoad would be equally there and not there regardless of what or whom she found, and she felt every living thing for miles, every leaf on every tree felt distinctly without falling to senselessness or the lie of words like green.

The second story sees James, a rootless and unemployed failed writer, hired as a literary detective to determine if a series of anonymous online poems are actually messages aimed at his new employer. The more he digs the more James realises that the poems seem to speak directly to anyone who studies them too closely (including himself), and he needs to figure out if they are merely an example of apophenia – the brain finding connections which aren't present – or if they are the result of online hacking/phishing or if they represent something more dangerous: just who is that man following James around Rome? And why does he sound like a character from the first story? Could it all be coincidence?

Dreams are ours alone. Never to be spied on, stolen, and never really to be shared, even when we try. If we’re lucky something in the waking world, some artifice, roof of wet cedar shingles, sail of meringue on a passing dessert plate, poem, maybe a poem about a dream of a dog in a port slum street, will seem to have the impress of the dream, and for a short time we can set the secret inside the found shape, and imagine that we are known.

In the final story, Celia – another woman who works for a pharmaceutical company (and as her name is an anagram for the similarly employed "Alice" in the first story, I can only assume we are supposed to conflate the two even as we are warned against it) – joins her anthropologist father on a cave exploration and unwittingly exposes herself to a conceptual artist who will co-opt her identity and use it as inspiration for his work (brief animated scenes that use elements from both Celia's and Alice's stories). When her father has a late-in-life religious experience, Celia recognises how the human brain fools itself yearning for meaning and a significant place in the universe.

Now and then we find ourselves in story. Events, some of them casually connected, begin to seem inevitable. Their presentation becomes distinct. Maybe a theme emerges. But because life is not literature, we drop out of the story before it ends.

After James has positive reviews from many of my favourite Canadian authors on its cover, and while that does impress me, it also tells me something else: this might be the kind of book that is written for writers more than for common readers; it's the meta-analysis of what makes a modern novel that seems to be its greatest accomplishment (which is no small accomplishment, even if it doesn't mean that I totally connected to what was going on). This is a big read, but not in the usual sense, and it won't be to everyone's tastes; I still can't quite figure out if it was to mine but I'm certainly glad to have experienced it.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 2 out of 5]

After James by Michael Helm is a so-so novel told in three loosely connected storylines. Disturbing and atmospheric, After James features stylistic, existential and dense prose resulting in a feeling of unease. The three parts of the novel represent three types of genre fiction: the gothic horror, the detective novel, and the apocalyptic.

The first part follows Ali, a neuroscientist who abruptly leaves her job and isolates herself in rural Canada. She plans to blow the whistle on the drug she helped create, Alph, which enhances creativity but also induces suicide in test subjects. The second part follows James, a literary detective hired by Ali's father as he tries to find Ali by decoding the work of an internet poet who writes with precise details about the disappearance and murder of people. The third part features Ali's sister Cecilia, a survivor of a miscarriage, who has her identity stolen by a conceptual artist.

After James is an ambitious novel that has brilliant parts but doesn't quite live up to its lofty goals. Part of the reason for this is the prose itself, which tends to be incredibly detailed. When this prose turns toward the characters, who are excessively reflective about everything, it is easy to lose track of any direction the stories are taking. They become pages of characters wallowing in their own thoughts while leaving the reader struggling to keep reading. I never felt any connection to them or had even begun to care about what they were thinking.

And, if I'm totally honest, Helm had to do a lot of making up to me as a reader concerning Ali and her dog. Ali, for an intelligent woman, needed more assertiveness and should have pulled out her cell phone and made a few calls. I don't think I ever quite forgave Helm for what happened to Ali's dog and her hazy nonchalant attitude toward him being missing. It's never good if I'm mentally talking back to an author about characters and choices. It didn't bode well for the next two parts. In the end even the passages that were incredible couldn't overcome all the passages that left me struggling to keep reading (and I am a reader who tries very hard to understand the author's intent and very, very rarely does not finish what I start.)


Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher for review purposes.

[Penny (Literary Hoarders)]

DNF Many thanks to Emily at Penguin Random House Canada for finding an available ARC of After James. I did request it, but there weren't enough copies available, so then having the ARC appear in the mail was a great surprise. I wanted to read something different. I wanted to try it and shake up what has become pretty normal or standard kinds of reading for me. After James seemed like just the ticket. Described as a "genre bending" read it was described as 3 books in one: a gothic horror, detective story, and apocalyptic told in 3 distinct but linked parts.

The gothic horror story, "Alice After James" was not that bad, but by the end I was deeply confused. Alice worked for a pharmaceutical company and designed a drug that became something altogether - a drug that could boost creativity. When a test subject is taken off the drug and kills himself, she packs up the pills and drives off into seclusion in the woods. Alice takes the drug herself and her story is very much as though we have also taken that drug - I couldn't figure out what the hell I was reading and the hallucinogenic story confused the hell out of me.

Décor is the second story - the "detective tale" and I figured I would have more success with this part. Unfortunately, this is where I bailed. I got that one of the characters in this story is the "James" in the "Alice After James" but I couldn't read this part all the way through to see how they truly connected. I just couldn't do it anymore. It was becoming too nonsensical and bizarre for me.

I am no fan at all of apocalyptic stories, I am firm and steady in that regard, so I knew that if I was struggling through the "detective" aspect of After James, I would never survive the last part / Part III. I bailed. I'm sorry.

This is sadly, strike 3 out of the 3 Canlit books I've read recently. :-( That is causing me great pain.
First was The Jungle South of the Mountain, then Stranger: A Novel and now After James. Le sigh.

I don't like giving up on books, and I really did give After James a solid try, but I have to let it go. And I'm really hoping my next Canlit read will be a shining star.

[Katherine Pederson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up early in the book. It was rambling...every single second of her (Alice) observations are recorded. (think facebook post: I brushed my hair then ate some chips). I literally thought I was going mad! What am I missing? So glad I didn't push through...reading shouldn't be this disappointing!

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 40%. I may try a written copy and see if it's any better for me but the audio is putting me to sleep!

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. But I think it might be even better as a re-read, and for me it might have been better having known ahead of time not to expect all the answers at the end. That's not what this book is about.

[Angie Abdou · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thoughts: http://winnipegreview.com/2016/09/aft...

[Shawn Buckle · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a meandering mess that is in serious need of editing and a little humility from the writer.

Even without Google telling you so, it is abundantly clear, Helm is a literary-lifer, teaching at university as he strings in as much Advanced Lit. knowledge into these three stories as possible. No wonder professional reviewers speak so highly of this one - it's like clickbait to them - but for the average reader, a punch of professorial pomp.

Of the 420 pages, there's a great stretch in the first story of about 40 pages, where Helm is focused on moving the story forward, focused on creating suspense and executes this brilliantly with a loop that holds you. It's here where he gets 1 star from me. It's here where he leaves behind his need to 'have his voice heard' with all his puffery that doesn't add any depth to the book.

Or, maybe I 'don't get it'?

[Kelsi H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please read all of my reviews at http://ultraviolentlit.blogspot.ca!

After James is a novel written in three distinct parts, which mirror one another in unexpected ways. Each part pays homage to a different type of genre fiction – gothic horror, the detective novel, and apocalyptic fiction. Helm also masters a different writing style for all three sections, giving them the strength to stand alone, although they are better together. It is an elevation of genre writing, in which they are pieced together to create a brilliant work of literary fiction.

In the first part, “Alice After James”, a Vancouver pharmaceutical company has created a drug that will spark creativity. Alice, one of the scientists involved in the production of the drug, begins to have doubts about it’s safety. She decides to go off the grid for a while, escaping to an isolated cabin in the woods. While there, she gets pulled into the story of a possible murder, although we as readers don’t know if the clues are real or based in madness. Alice’s experiences are like a time-jumping dream sequence – we are made to feel like Alice, or even ourselves, are the ones who took the experimental drug.

In James’ section, “Decor”, several characters become obsessed with the anonymous poems being posted to a website called “Three Sheets” – they begin to feel like the poet is speaking directly to them, about their unique experiences. James is hired as a cyber sleuth by a wealthy benefactor in Italy, who feels that the poems are clues to the whereabouts of his missing daughter – a daughter who has some surprising similarities to Alice. James’ part of the novel is filled with poetic language, accentuated by his hyperactive thoughts which he refers to as a “cha-cha”, making intriguing connections between contrasting ideas. James’ ADHD brain jumps around rapidly, leaving the reader with no safe space to put the book down and reflect on things.

Celia is the main character in the final section, and in some ways she brings it all together – in other ways, she adds even more unanswered questions to the novel. At first, Celia seems more conventional and clear-minded than both Alice and James, but she is quickly manipulated by an older, experimental artist who co-opts her whole life for his gallery show. The free association of repeating symbols is underlined in this section – the relationships between fathers and daughters, travel to isolated lands, experimental lifestyle drugs, and missing women, to name a few. The concepts of art and creativity are very important, and the layers of the novel build a metafiction with no basis in reality – who is “real”, who is dreaming or hallucinating, and is the author under the influence as well?

The writing here is dense, and saturated with references to artists and scientists. While the stories are connected, it is difficult to fully understand how – After James should probably be read multiple times to grasp it all. In fact, I think it might be helpful to read the sections in reverse, although this is just a theory. Instead of a clear ending, we are left with thematic and symbolic connections that are less than obvious. Although it sounds confusing, I really enjoyed reading this – although it’s hard to explain or even comprehend why. I found myself highlighting constantly, hoping to piece it all together. I think it’s best summed up by Celia’s conversation with her father, in which he tells her, “[w]onder’s the very thing that makes us human.” (Loc. 3182) It is a sense of wonder that bonds Alice, James and Celia – it is wonder that really makes us who we are, and what makes this novel so great.

I received this book from Tin House Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big pharma has finally created a drug that will spark your creativity -- or so After James promises, before diving into a three part novel full of holes in memory, fathers and daughters, a sense of timelessness, and codes to be cracked in chemicals, behaviors and language.

Each section centered around the story of an individual prone to intellectualization - a scientist, a poet, and an archaeologist - who each find themselves on the other side of the looking glass, a murky and deceptive place where creativity meets conspiracy. It sets an interesting and concrete example of what it so often does look like when humans try to harness the divine, however you might define it, and as such there is a vein of spirituality run afoul throughout the entire story.

While I appreciated the premise, and found myself wondering why hasn’t anyone written this novel yet? when I first received it, ultimately the promise didn’t pan out in the way that I as a reader might have hoped.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

finished and confused, but i read this almost non-stop so it gets a strong rating for being compelling, if not altogether confounding... Helm an surely write fabulously, and he spins some complex and complicated yarns in the process... i refused to get caught up or bent out of shape about the blurb reference to "three types of genre fiction" as i found it uselessly simplistic and limiting, sure to cause discord when the reader's assumption of what any/all of the genres should look like cancelled out their enjoyment of the prose and the tale(s)... i liked the smarty-ness of the text, the endless references to things/places/history/philosophy/-isms... books that make me think, even if not about the book itself, are winners for me... strange in places, dreamy in others, disconnected yet linked all the way through... a wondrously imaginative narrative...

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I didn't make it very far into this before I put it down. Maybe around 50 or so pages. The writing was over-stylized and extremely dense, in the bad sense of the word. I felt like I was slogging through pages without actually absorbing anything, like I was just surviving to the next page. It was easy to become lost in the narrative (again, in the bad sense of the word), to the point where I was unable to glean any type of meaning from the words I was reading. This was definitely not for me but I won't go so far as to say "hated," even though I didn't finish it. I feel that's too strong a word for something just because it's not my bag. It may be yours.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Brendan Linwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can think of no other book I have read wherein the author so thoroughly gets in their own way. In his attempts to play with genre and style, while simultaneously weaving a heavy-handed parable about the threats of modernity, Helm injects himself everywhere in this book. After James crosses over from stylish to unreadable within the first twenty pages, primarily due to the author's desperation to showcase his own ingenuity instead of telling what might otherwise be a compelling story. I wanted to like this book, being as it is by a Canadian author and a Globe and Mail "Best Book"; unfortunately I cannot recommend it at all.

[Mary Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stories linked by theme with each having a different mode of presentation: murder, detective, and apocalyptic. Each story explores a daughter's relationship with a father, and each of these have some sort of scientific knowledge. The writing is detailed, hypnotic almost with the continual exploration of world both external and internal to the characters.

[Adam Sol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunted.

[Niya · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you enjoyed the cloud atlas you'll enjoy the structuring of this text.

[Dree · Rating 3 out of 5]

The three stories here are all unsettling and creepy. Is it sci fi? Maybe. Ecofiction? Also maybe, but that is not the focus. We have unreliable narrators who themselves are surrounded by unreliable narrators within their stories.

I thought the first (with Ali) was fantastic--moody and creepy, the narration was great, and the ending was open and very very creepy. Ali is considering being a whistleblower regarding the pharmaceutical she helped develop (and samples regularly). But maybe this nice isolated place she rented for the winter is not quite so peaceful as she though--or is that the drug talking?

The second story (with James) was interesting but too long and a bit boring--it seemed that it might connect to the first in the mysterious pharmaceutical mentioned? James takes an odd job as a literary detective, hired to help figure out who the popular mysterious poet might be. But it seems everyone who reads too closely thinks these poems are all about their own lives and they become obsessed.

The the third story (with Celia) again featured scientific research (on pathogens, not drugs), and was also creepy and a bit too long and I just ended up being confused. Celia learns she has become the star of her father's new friend's artwork--without her knowledge or consent. And her father does not seem to care. This story reminded me of the movie Time Trap but went a different way (and I did not really understand the way it went).

I thought all of these stories had great ideas and a lot of potential, but only the first succeeded. Maybe this is an audiobook issue?

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Helm’s book is delightful and disturbing in equal measure. Comprised of three mainly independent parts featuring different protagonists and approximating different genres, each evokes sympathy and tension, uncertainty, fear. The concepts of memory and awareness are explored, and the sense of the almost-knowable pervades each piece. In the end it’s a little hard to put it altogether, but it’s so masterfully written (I mean: “How many saw in the available light ghosts they knew by name?”) that I ended up not caring. I would go re-read it in the hope of a better understanding, but I am left by Helms with the sense that it would only become less knowable at each reading. For now I will just enjoy the mysteries of being it has highlighted.

As a final thought, here’s Helms through the titular James (one of them, anyway):

There’s a degree of cowardice or fraudulence in every reader who feels the need, upon closing a book, to open his mouth.

I don’t agree (I declare, mouth open), but I feel like I owe it to the author to acknowledge the sentiment.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece. What even was this? Three characters under the influence of a drug or something similar, try to understand how we decide what to believe about 1) other people, 2) ourselves and 3) existence. In the course of the book I guess you could say there’s a chainsaw-wielding murderer, an espionage rendezvous in the Grand Bazaar, and a literal tomb raided. But they all feel no more important than the Malickian reflections on the mystery of being and consciousness. And the helix on the cover seems to indicate that the character from the first part is the character from the last part come around again, just mutated.

This wonderful website has its uses, but the page-counting reading challenges got me sprinting through books, missing so much of the point of it all. After James is the book that made me slow down and savour. I’ve never incurred late fees for 400 pages before. Worth every penny.

[Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is 3 stories that aren't directly connected but are tied together thematically. The first and last are under 100 pages so the middle story ends up being almost half the book. I read the first story a few months ago but when I hit the chapter-less middle part I just couldn't get into it. I finally started and finished the rest of the book and thankfully the longest one is the most enjoyable. It has a better opportunity to establish its characters and the story doesn't feel truncated like the other 2.
Overall I do recommend it, but it's unfortunate that it ends with the weakest of the 3. The writing is overall excellent but I do have one short rant: Don't use 'concerning' as an adjective! It seems to be getting more and more popular lately and I was disappointed to see it in a published novel.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the other ignoramuses (ignorami?) I got confused by this book and had to read the lengthy review of another gracious person to better understand what I'd just read. It is 3 VERY loosely connected stories, with an unclear resolution--or arguably no resolution whatsoever. I guess this is meant to be poetic?

I enjoyed some of the writing, the abstract thoughts and descriptions, and at points felt hooked on the makings of a good psychological thriller mystery plot.

Call me ignorant, but without a clear ending or a more concrete explanation to tie the stories together, the ending fell flat for me.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meeehhhhhhhhhhh... a very light 2 star. I can see the bigger picture here but with nothing to hold onto or care about I was quite bored. Way too much focus on the contemporary elements for me to really appreciate the sci-fi elements. The connection between each part was too loose and buried away to really feel the thrill of the structure. A more literary audience might appreciate the slow burn but it wasn't for me.

[Helen Bowes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up on this book after about 50 pages. Very disappointed to do so as I thought the story would be interesting. It was the peculiar writing style that I could not tolerate. When I took a look at the reviews and found that many others had struggled to read it I felt justified in giving in and moving on.

[Len · Rating 2 out of 5]

This came to me extremely highly recommended, but I really don't know.
All 3 separate stories were interesting and well written, for sure, but they were just that - separate.
I expected a novel, but it read more like 3 longer short stories. Each time a section changed, I felt jolted, disjointed and wondering what the hell was going on.

[Katryna Wicks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finishing this book is a triumph. It was disjointed, confusing, plotless, painful, dense yet dull. I found myself reading and rereading sections trying to find meaning. This book is 420 pages of nonsensical word salad. There is no pay off, nothing gets explained or resolved. I'm so glad I'm done reading this book. I hated it.

[Margarita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a smart and complex read that had me both equally enthralled and scratching my head. It's so ambitious thematically and structurally (genre-bending), but it holds together incredibly well with clean, thoughtful prose. Definitely the kind of book to savour, mull over and then in its entirety read over again.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tangly.

[Charit · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a tough one to finish. Writer wrote long sentences and made the stories too dense for little gain.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

So confused about this one. Enjoyed reading it. Did not understand it. Maybe not good to read while sick.