re:mote voices

Title: Shirker

Author: Chad Taylor

Publisher: Canongate

Chad Taylor writes odd fiction, somehow not quite definable. His works tending to be led by curiously decrepit men – those with addictions, those who despite everything aren’t making the most of their life. The New Zealand author has 4 novels published in the UK, along with a collection of short stories. My first contact with his work was through the novel published here most recently – Electric – featuring a drug addicted data recovery expert who meets some drugged up mathematicians and is caught up in the strange illusions that stem from both of those. Second contact was with the film Heaven, an adaptation of one is earlier novels, following the connection between a gambling architect and a psychic transsexual. Shirker comes somewhere between Heaven and Electric, and by this time, one is starting to recognise Taylor’s stylistics.

Elleslie Penrose is a reluctant futures broker, with his best friend being the bar man, and his love life coming from one of the waitresses. Stumbling across a murder scene near his office, where he sleeps as well as works, he finds the dead man’s wallet. Despite an initial attempt to hand the wallet to the police, events conspire against Penrose. So that he ends up holding onto the wallet and getting sucked deeper into his own investigation into the crime. A murder that seems to be related to a series of diaries that were started in 1875. Something which is especially complicated by the fact that the man who wrote the diaries seems to be still alive.

Taylor is a really good writer, there are many sentences describing what is going on in Shirker that I wish I could have written as well. However there remains something as disappointing about his work as there is appealing. Which makes Shirker a slow burner initially. Although it certainly builds up a momentum as it goes, which is where one of the real narrative issues comes up – the turning point of the novel is the Mardi Gras celebrations which have been promised from the start. Where events switch to a higher gear, and it is easy to feel as though you are missing something in the process. Some effort is made to resolve any confusion with the epilogue styled section, though Taylor does tease the reader a little, leaving key mysteries unexplained.