Outposts

Akerman’s aimless novel tells the story of an impoverished scholar and his attempt to forge a career for himself by writing the biography of Nestor Dunn, a notably reclusive yet lauded man of letters. Threatened by “financial squalor,” the nameless narrator agrees to take on the biography project when offered it by an acquaintance. Unfortunately for both the narrator and the reader, the narrator has few sources, none of whom are terribly forthcoming. Nestor’s daughter, Emma, is coy; stripper and aspiring novelist Anya Luchinskaya has met Nestor only a few times; his psychiatrist friend Bernard LaBelle is dead. Nestor has been out of sight for some time, only surfacing in connection with the death in a house fire of a mother and son near the area where both Nestor and the narrator grew up. A dramatic plot turn midway through the story drastically alters the narrator’s course of action, leaving him at sea. The novel is a patchwork of the narrator’s meanderings about New York and assorted odd vignettes and occurrences. Nestor is described as “one sprawling question mark,” and the same could be said of this work. The whole is a mass of loose ends that may satisfy readers of unconventional narratives but will leave others wishing for something more grounded. [em](BookLife) [/em]