college rock and fishhooks

Ed Brubaker is fond of the phrase "slacker noir". Sean Stewart's novel Perfect Circle would, I'd say, fit this description almost perfectly. "Almost" because, well, his protagonist chats with dead folks. Yet ultimately, this book seems closest in tone to the books I've read about accidental P.I.s caught up in events far out of their ken. (Think George Pelecanos's A Firing Offense in terms of the tone, and you're not far off. Except, you know, with ghosts.)

I haven't read Stewart's work in years. A friend and I both read his first few novels -- offbeat work that subtly tweaked genre conventions, if memory serves -- but somewhere along the line, he fell off my radar. I know that he had a hand in the amazingly complex website for the film A.I. a few years ago. Needless to say, I'm going to need to revisit the man's work before too long.

Perfect Circle takes its name from the R.E.M. song of the same name; when this became apparent, I realized I was in good hands. In these pages, you'll also find tips of the hat to the Meat Puppets, the Gun Club, and Tom Waits. Stewart's protagonist, Will Kennedy, is the sort of guy who'd show up in an X-Files episode scripted by Nick Hornby. It's a terrific book, and it's left me with an urge to visit Houston.