Extremely Loud & Incredible Close - post II

With echoes of the sort of literary devices used by the likes of Georges Perec to help shape the story the main character Oskar decides to track down every Black in New York. Armed with his key he needs to find the lock for and his own confidence he manages to encounter various people all sharing the surname Black.

What makes the story engaging is not just the question of what he will discover but the weaving in of the back story of his grandparents and the illustration through the meetings with various people what family and memories are all about.

With the gaping hole left where his father used to be Oskar struggles to fill it, along with the thousands of others in a similar situation, but you sense that as he comes across other stories and other causes of regret and sadness he might at least be able to put his own loss into some sort of greater perspective.

More tomorrow…