In a Strange Room

The three pieces that comprise In a Strange Room first appeared separately in the Paris Review - but they retain their true power as a triptych. Galgut - like his near contemporary, Coetzee - uses a blend of fiction and memoir to create a oddly kind of bleached autobiographical narrative. In all these pieces, the narrator, Damon, variously refers to himself in the first and third person, as though identity is constantly fluid. It is an unsettling effect and one that works brilliantly.The three sections of the book see Damon wandering around different countries and continents, describing the people and places he sees along the way. Each journey is full of ill-omens, of thwarted love affairs and misunderstandings. But as with the fiction of WG Sebald, the real story here is the one that is hidden. Why is he running? What is he hiding from? And what is he looking for?

This is a melancholic, elegiac, meditative novel that somehow never feels slow and ponderous. Instead, the mystery at the heart of the writing keeps the reader hooked just as much as the beauty of the writing.