The Journal Of Nicholas The American by Leigh Kennedy
01/02/2003 . Source: Jane Palmer 
pub: Big Engine (first published by St Martins Press, USA, 1986). 181 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 9.99 (UK). ISBN: 1-903468-11-6. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. session with her mother who is dying of cancer can pass from empathic to disconcerting. The device of using a diary written by someone who is so self-absorbed can be tedious unless the reader is an addict of Mrs Dale or Samuel Pepys and invites a need to sharpen the point of an otherwise pedestrian story.
The writing is not bad but, because it is in first person, can come over as introverted and obsessive. The author convinces you that this unlikely empathy actually occurs and the gloominess of the situation is suitably Russian in tenor.
Living with the emotional toll of having involuntary access to the inner feelings of other people is not only wearing for the main character, it can pull the reader down as well.
The continual ambivalence of Kolya towards Jack, the woman he professes to love, one moment clinging, the next rejecting her to lavish attention on her sick mother can also become tiresome.
Kolya does the obligatory bonking and generally displays aspects of male petulance and intolerance. Sometimes this comes over as going through the motions and leaves the feeling that the writer could go deeper by moving back - much further back.
It is easy to see how his quandary would be more interesting if it came from several different perspectives and not just through the first person.
From a distance, Kolya could be a deeply enigmatic young man. From inside, he is little more than an emotional mess given in to his own introverted needs.
His ability to know anyone's every emotion and motive does little to help make him sympathetic. The empath in Science Fiction may have since become something of a cipher, but thankfully one more in tune with the Universe and other people's frailties.
It is a painless and sometimes enjoyable read despite this and eventually does offer the hope of a solution.
Jane Palmer |
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