Very Different Mystery

Finished April 15
Go With Me by Castle Freeman Jr.
This is a very odd, but engaging book. It is short, only 160 pages, filled with dark humour, and gave me a sense of the existential. Set in the New England backwoods, it begins with a young woman asleep in her car, armed with a paring knife, waiting for the sheriff to arrive at work.
She is being stalked by a local man, and is afraid for her life. The sheriff tells her that he can't help her, but directs her to a group of men who congregate at a nearby factory. There, she is joined by two men, one young and one old in her uncertain cause. As the three roam the area searching for her victimizer, we move back and forth between the three searchers and the men at the factory. The odd, disjointed conversations and reminiscences of the men add to the strange atmosphere present throughout the tale. The actions and attitudes of Lester and Nate, the two men who are searching for Blackway are both offhand and deliberate. This book is different from any other book I can think of, but I couldn't put it down!