"A Density of Souls"

"A Density of Souls"
Christopher Rice
Pan, $13.00





If Christopher Rice's parents weren't famous, I fail to see how he would have had a New York Times bestseller with "A Density of Souls"

His novel is the story of four friends. And their parents. And their teachers. And their classmates. And their lovers. The story follows them from pre-puberty up to their early 20s. And like any over-dramatic story, it includes love, friendship, alcohol, violence, hate, abuse, alcohol, sex, psychiatric hospitals, alcohol, alcohol poisoning, guns, death, rebellion, natural disasters and alcohol.

Basically, it's a soap opera squeezed into 288 pages. If that description turns you off from reading it, you're welcome for saving a few hours of your life that you might have otherwise spent gasping at the ridiculousness of this novel.

Every event that happens in the story is painted up through excessive description and dramatic dialouge as if what has just occurred will change the world:

Then Meredith heard it. A human, female wail, a torrent of vocal pain she had never heard given breath before. Meredith felt the wail pass through her body. She trembled. For a brief instant, it was as if the sound had ripped the black veil across Meredith's own grief.
An ambulance's sirens devoured the woman's screams. (91)

The characters yell and fight in conversations that would be discussed in a normal tone of voice in real life. They drink alcohol as much as they inhale oxygen. They fight and hit and punch as if they all have anger control problems — except for one character who mostly chooses to drink bottles of Stoli every night while writing in a secret journal, presumably hidden under her mattress (yeah, like anyone's ever NOT checked there for a diary).

Rice jumps around with his primary character, the one who is telling the story. While it would make sense for him to switch between the four characters who are supposed to be the stars who share a secret, he also jumps to the mom, the brother, the teacher, the jock — but they only tell the story while they are necessary to be in it.

Rice's book asserts that the jock would not exist if it were not for the homosexual because he needs him to be his opposite in the social order to prove his dominance. He shows this in the typical, generic high school way, where the jocks tease the homosexuals and call them names. But he also brings in a more disgusting, sexual description of how the social relationships between these two groups work, going too far with even the idea of that being a normal activity and with the graphic description of what happens between the boys.

A good story has developed, meaningful relationships between the characters because those are what keeps the reader interested in what happens to them. But the relationships between the four main characters is hardly explained. The only reason we learn anything about those friendships is because they are explained in the final section of the book — if the reader even makes it there.

Rice tries to pull the reader in by saying things such as Meredith will hurt Brandon if he ever goes near Stephen, and Meredith knows there's something about the boys that will always leave her out of the group, and Stephen knows the secrets about Brandon and Greg, and Jordan knows something is going on with Brandon but Elise won't tell him where he is, and more and more and more and more. Rice hides all of these secrets until the end of the book, but, just as with a soap opera, it wouldn't be hard to walk away in the middle of the story without missing what you didn't know about them or where they will go next.

The book is drowned in alcohol and depression. The only reason I could find to read it is so you can laugh at the ridiculousness of the drama and the way the characters yell and overreact about every event they encounter.

New York Times Bestseller? Really? Maybe it's easier to make that list than I thought. Maybe all you need is a famous last name.