Black Rock White City by A.S. PatricMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jovan and his wife Suzana fled Bosnia and sought refuge in Australia. Both previously literature professors at University, he is now a cleaner at a hospital and she is a cleaner for a private home.
As this story progresses we slowly receive more and more information as to their past and what they have fled. Overlaying this is the mystery surrounding Jovan's workplace where someone has been leaving graffiti throughout the hospital with strange words and small poems, and the graffiti slowly escalates to murder.
Language is a key theme in this book. The things we say, and don't say. The way that Jovan can think and feel poetically, but his grasp of the English language means that he is unable to convey these thoughts. The graffiti using words as weapons. Suzana's direct and sometimes hurtful and brutal honesty.
This is not an easy read and the use of short sentences that are not descriptive can make the reading sometimes jarring as the reader attempts to catch up with what just happened. However, there is a kind of strange beauty in the writing style and is worth the effort of reading.
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