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A review by swaggle
A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava
5.0
What a bizarre and enthralling book. Moby Dick if it was written by a lawyer. So much natural and observational comedy in this book that it almost makes you forget how serious and how high the stakes of the plot often are.
As the author himself states, this book shows a reality that most people aren't privy to. Our protagonist, Casi, aligns himself with the type of characters who most readers would cross the street to avoid or try to get away from. Ironically these characters are much more compelling and evoke far more sympathy than other members of the cast that Casi is "supposed" to like, such as the doctor who he went on a date with, or the people that keep repeating the lines you might expect a public defender to get barraged with: "Why become a public defender instead of a lawyer which gets better pay" or "You must be stressed out" or "How can you defend people who are criminals and deserve to be locked up" etc. Even his fellow public defender/lawyer friends will not understand Casi's idealism and why he tries so hard to represent his clients. But how could you not feel sympathetic for Jalen Kingg, or topple over laughing from any number of hilarious circumstances that occur because of one of the clients behavior? They bring so many memorable moments and bring this book to life. The author himself having many years of experience as a public defender is probably a good part of the reason why this novel is so convincing and believable in the first couple hundred pages.
There are some points where the book felt very over the top and on the nose about things, but it all felt like it coincided with the unbelievable nature of the plot so I'm not knocking it for that, just saying. I liked the character Dane but from the very first moment he was introduced I thought he was an absolute idiot. Like you couldn't write a more flawed character, I felt like he was on the wrong side of every issue in the book the entire time. And there's probably some point being made there, I guess. Or just establishing him as the Mephistopheles in the Faustian bargain arc of the book. His takes on psychology just seem so wrong, I remember he said something like "What you are perceived by others to be is what you are." And Casi, an otherwise smart guy, lets this dude get in his head constantly, which for the life of me I cannot fathom why.
I was also quite fascinated by the parallels the author drew between Casi and Wilfred Benitez, the young world champion hall of fame boxer of the 1980's. I've read other novels that try to do this type of thing and it doesn't always work, but I think it allowed really interesting story telling and was a useful narrative device here. I'm sure Casi feels like he's defending a world champion belt when he gets a case like the guy who got caught breaking into the van. The ironic thing is that while the rules for a boxing match usually serves to level the playing field between the fighters, it seems like the opposite is true in the courtroom, at least in this novel. Casi always seems to be fighting an uphill battle against the rules and what gets accepted as evidence. Since I'm not a big boxing fan I hadn't heard of Wilfred Benitez prior, makes me wonder if De La Pava could write a whole novel about boxing, I'd probably still be enthralled.
You'll like this if you like long monologues/tangents, obsessive characters, sub-plots, large casts of characters, interest in law from a public defender's perspective, stream of consciousness writing and plot/writing that becomes increasingly entropic.
As the author himself states, this book shows a reality that most people aren't privy to. Our protagonist, Casi, aligns himself with the type of characters who most readers would cross the street to avoid or try to get away from. Ironically these characters are much more compelling and evoke far more sympathy than other members of the cast that Casi is "supposed" to like, such as the doctor who he went on a date with, or the people that keep repeating the lines you might expect a public defender to get barraged with: "Why become a public defender instead of a lawyer which gets better pay" or "You must be stressed out" or "How can you defend people who are criminals and deserve to be locked up" etc. Even his fellow public defender/lawyer friends will not understand Casi's idealism and why he tries so hard to represent his clients. But how could you not feel sympathetic for Jalen Kingg, or topple over laughing from any number of hilarious circumstances that occur because of one of the clients behavior? They bring so many memorable moments and bring this book to life. The author himself having many years of experience as a public defender is probably a good part of the reason why this novel is so convincing and believable in the first couple hundred pages.
There are some points where the book felt very over the top and on the nose about things, but it all felt like it coincided with the unbelievable nature of the plot so I'm not knocking it for that, just saying. I liked the character Dane but from the very first moment he was introduced I thought he was an absolute idiot. Like you couldn't write a more flawed character, I felt like he was on the wrong side of every issue in the book the entire time. And there's probably some point being made there, I guess. Or just establishing him as the Mephistopheles in the Faustian bargain arc of the book. His takes on psychology just seem so wrong, I remember he said something like "What you are perceived by others to be is what you are." And Casi, an otherwise smart guy, lets this dude get in his head constantly, which for the life of me I cannot fathom why.
I was also quite fascinated by the parallels the author drew between Casi and Wilfred Benitez, the young world champion hall of fame boxer of the 1980's. I've read other novels that try to do this type of thing and it doesn't always work, but I think it allowed really interesting story telling and was a useful narrative device here. I'm sure Casi feels like he's defending a world champion belt when he gets a case like the guy who got caught breaking into the van. The ironic thing is that while the rules for a boxing match usually serves to level the playing field between the fighters, it seems like the opposite is true in the courtroom, at least in this novel. Casi always seems to be fighting an uphill battle against the rules and what gets accepted as evidence. Since I'm not a big boxing fan I hadn't heard of Wilfred Benitez prior, makes me wonder if De La Pava could write a whole novel about boxing, I'd probably still be enthralled.
You'll like this if you like long monologues/tangents, obsessive characters, sub-plots, large casts of characters, interest in law from a public defender's perspective, stream of consciousness writing and plot/writing that becomes increasingly entropic.