Friday, February 21, 2003
Title: Dead Air
Author: Iain Banks
Publisher: Little Brown
Dead Air is the latest novel by writer Iain Banks, reputed to be one of the quickest he has written. Which no doubt contributes to the sense of rushing flow that the book displays. The story of Ken Nott, a radio shock jock on a talk radio show on a London radio station.
The core of the story relates to the amount of trouble he gets himself into, to the point he starts receiving threats, attacks and kidnap attempts. All of this coming from his ability to use and abuse his friends and their trust, as well as his ongoing affair with the wife of a major crime lord. As a background to this we have one of Banks' most political works, the first chapter featuring the twin towers, while further in we have discussions on Israel and encounters with holocaust deniers.
One down side of Dead Air is that it is, at least initially, hard to follow. Starting on September 11th the narrative then wanders back and forth filling in the gaps as Banks sees fit. The progress does become more forward looking as the book goes on, the back tracking more obvious, the reader having got a feel for who people are and how Nott has got to the point with them that he has.
Regardless Dead Air is one of Banks most readable and no doubt contemporary works to date. Nott is an entertaining character, though it is especially entertaining to see him called naive. For all his intelligence he is not smart enough to see how some things really are or to avoid getting out of trouble. In fact there are times where he manages to really drop himself in it - with the two words that make up chapter 10 summing up the key turning point of the narrative - "oh shit".
RVWR: PTR
February 2003
