THE DESTROYERS
Christopher Bollen
Simon & Schuster
by ROB KIDD
But grudgingly at first, page by page, Christopher Bollen won me over.
Ian Bledsoe, who narrates the story, has just watched his father die in front of him; not that he was particularly bothered, the death means little more than his steady supply of cash running dry.
Leaving the grief of the rest of his family and his precarious financial position behind, Ian makes one last withdrawal and heads to the island of Patmos — his last hope.
There, owning a boating business and generally appearing to be living the dream, is his childhood friend Charlie Konstantinou.
The two mates are essentially spoiled rich kids; arrogant and overprivileged.
Ian’s character presents a strange dichotomy — you initially feel obliged to like him, to sympathise over his dilemmas, but as the story progresses he becomes increasingly frustrating; his interior monologue shows he clearly rates himself as an intellectual, yet he is continually making poor decisions. He switches off his problems back home by simply turning off his phone and he is sickeningly preoccupied with money.
Redeeming features are sparse.
Was this an intentional construct by Bollen? Did he mean to make his main man so annoying?
I needed to know, and my quest for an answer was somewhat less eventful than The Destroyers’ plot. I asked the author on Twitter, and to his credit he replied in less than half an hour.
Was I supposed to dislike Ian?
"I often wanted to strangle him, too," Bollen said.
It was actually a comforting response and it painted the character as growing organically to the point where he even disappointed his creator.
Brilliant.
When Charlie goes missing, Ian becomes caught in the web of mystery and death that ensues.
The perfect setting becomes a prison and the salvation each character is seeking becomes severely compromised.
- Rob Kidd is an ODT reporter.
