Nourished By That Which Consumes

When Max Beerbohm said of his book reviews, "I look at the book, write the review, and if I like what I've written I'll read the book,"  he was of course, joking.  That spirit is the spirit of this blog.

That said, this is the first "book teaser" review on Beerbohmtastic.

I stared at the cover of "Nourished By That Which Consumes," a novel by Joseph Ephraim, for about five minutes. I let my eyes trace and follow the sign for infinity that surrounded the pyramids.  Both symbols are significant and, based on the title, may imply an unending struggle or journey, depicted by the infinity symbol and supernatural or paranormal properties from the pyramids.

Staring at the cover was certainly not enough to write a review.  A prologue and excerpt from the first chapter, which I read, are available at the link below.  I guess it's the literary version of a trailer...

This review is of the teaser chapters.

Nourished By That Which Consumes, is the story of a Mandarin Chinese family plagued by a father's gambling and ever increasing debt.  The father's selfishness and greed reach has a profound effect on the family, especially the eldest daughter.  When the loan sharks go too far in their intimidation of the family, a devastating tragedy awakens the self-absorbed father.

The prose is very direct and to the point.  It begins with the prologue in the first person where the eldest daughter  tells the tragic story in an almost detached way. The years of "Mianzi" (the Mandarin term for "face"), rather the public loss of "face" that the father's actions imposed on his family, created a detached shell.

The first chapter is written in the third person. I'm not sure how the rest of the novel is written.

I must say that I was captured by the story.  I like the picture that it was painting and I thought two things when the "teaser" ended: I was disappointed that more was not available on line and, I will be downloading it to read in its entirety. 

Thanks for sending this, Joseph.  Best of luck!

 The book (and teaser) are available here..
http://amzn.to/PIPDd7
 OR
http://amzn.to/TxSFUb