It all began in 1967 when our narrator’s life was changed forever. He was a music journo, and like a bloodhound, he followed the clues to Luce and the Photon’s last secret gig. It is a gig that quickly became a legend, and ever since then, he has been obsessed with discovering who the enigmatic Luce really is: the greatest rock star of his (or her) generation? (Yes, even Luce’s gender is uncertain) or a performance-artist charlatan weaving an acid-laid trail of faux mysticism and ‘hip’ occult imagery that ultimately leads nowhere? And who are the people who are also following Luce, the ones who carry guns and set fire to the building Luce’s management company only recently – and very swiftly – vacated? Are they debt-collectors, gangsters, or something far, far worse? And why are they now following him?
His original quest took our narrator to the farthest corners of the earth, from the English countryside to the snowy Himalayan wastes to Paris to Japan to the Nevada desert, but it was definitely not a sightseeing trip. En route he encountered some of the worst dangers imaginable. And always a powerful, unfathomable darkness pursued him. Were those unknown forces real, demonic, or just figments of his own fevered imagination? And now, after being deported back to England forty years later, our narrator begins the quest yet again because The Book of Luce will not let him go. He still needs to discover the truth, and the darkness is still breathing down his neck. Who was Luce, why do all roads still seem to lead to Luce, and is Luce really dead – murdered many years ago, as is commonly believed – or still alive, invisibly pulling the strings that threaten to crush our narrator’s sanity once more?
That’s all the synopsis you’re getting because The Book of Luce isn’t so much a novel as it is a life experience. The less you know going in, the more you will enjoy this twisted, enigmatic, psychedelic mind-f(insert rude word here) of a book that is truly a slice of magic and a work of imaginative genius. It has been described as ‘David Mitchell meets David Bowie meets Christopher Nolan’s Inception’ but it is so much more than that – Ziggy Stardust meets Umberto Eco-Through-the-Looking-Glass meets Dan Brown perhaps? We don’t know, you’ll have to draw your own opinion. Like Luce him/herself, The Book of Luce is a literary chameleon that remains a mystery to the very last page, and we bet you’ll have a hard time getting it out of your head.
THE BOOK OF LUCE / AUTHOR: L.R. FREDERICKS / PUBLISHER: HODDER PAPERBACKS / RELEASE DATE: MAY 17TH
