Channel Zero
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
In the tradition of Raymond Carver, Channel Zero is a novel of working-class couples in middle-class America in the late 90s. Charlie and Linda Rivers and their friends struggle with issues of infidelity, race, drinking, and work in their daily lives. Conflicting loyalties to lovers, family, and friends pull at these characters, who are faced with tough decisions and serious consequences. G. H. Thomason's realistic, natural writing creates a world that seems familiar and characters that readers can care about.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Oklahoma City, this wan debut tries hard but fails to make readers understand or care about its dreary characters. Charlie Rivers spends most of his time drinking beer at Lucky's and working on cars with his childhood friend Tony Marducci, a violent racist. Charlie befriends Adam, a local five-year-old whose dad worries that Charlie is a bum or pervert. Meanwhile, Charlie wants kids of his own, but his peevish wife, Linda, a Korean-African American, doesn't. When Linda impulsively sleeps with young William, a cliche-spouting "artist" she meets at Lucky's, events head toward an anticlimax and a messy end. After Linda learns she is pregnant, she finds comfort from the novel's most interesting character, a nameless one-armed waitress at Lucky's. As with the main players, however, her possibilities remain unexplored. Despite some appealingly bleak dialogue and compellingly reductive situations, the narrative narrows down to a set of featureless souls lost in an equally empty landscape.
Customer Reviews
Channel Zero
Great literary story. Anyone into Raymond Carver would certainly appreciate this book.