SEVEN ELEVEN, The Complete Files

This book seems to challenge the reader with an interesting approach to the novel and pays off in unexpected ways. Visual and inventive, part mystery, and part critique of our media saturated moment told through multiple voices and received through the store's cash register. Funny, smart and immersed in our present moment. Great stuff.

This book is wildly inventive, visually exquisite and culturallyrelevant. Eight people are trapped in the universally familiar settingof a Seven Eleven while a protest rages outside and communication tothe outside world is temporarily suspended. Part adventure story, partmystery, and part catalog of exquisite images which were mysteriouslyreceived through the cash register. Was there a ghost in the machinetrying to tell us something or was it just our own imagery ricochetedback from space? Forensic and visual analysis and interpretation byhistorians, linguists and scientists uncover meanings that may be ofgreat import to humanity. The multiple voices, writing styles andnarratives, which are wide ranging and hilarious at times, collide andaccumulate significantly in this timely and scintillating narrative.While you could just flip through the book looking at the images, Irecommend reading it as a novel. It’s on my shelf between J.G. Ballardand Don Delillo where I believe it belongs.