"Nowhere-Land" by A.W. Hill (Counterpoint)

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Nowhere-Land
A.W. Hill
468 pp. Counterpoint. $25.00
Pub. Date: 6/1/2009
ISBN-13: 978-1582434988

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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Stephan Raszer is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill private investigator sleuthing for dollars; he transcends the typical pulp noir P.I.s drawn and shaded with crayons straight out of Mickey Spillane’s monochromatic Crayola collection. He doesn’t sit alone, waiting, generally for some sexed-up dame to walk through his badly stenciled door and lay a case down on his desk; meanwhile, worrying about where this month’s rent money is going to come from, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, worn fedora cocked to the side, bottle of rotgut on his desk; his shabby office with water-stained walls situated in a dilapidated, rodent-infested building. Even when said sexed-up dame does show up on his doorstep, usually murder’s the name of the game.

Not with Raszer, though. Finding missing people is his Monopoly. And it’s something he’s good at. Really good at.

And these aren’t the got-lost-on-the-way-to-the-liquor-store-hey-check-me-out-on-the-side-of-a-milk-carton kind of missing persons. These people fall off the grid completely, seemingly vanishing into thin air, spiritual victims led astray by persuasive cults or religious-themed alternate reality games. Victims, who’ve searched for God in all the wrong places, looked for salvation in too many faces. One moment they’re here, the next—poof—gone like the Devil in a brimstone-scented puff of smoke.

See, Stephan Raszer is a cult specialist; an extractor who finds and returns people, who have tumbled down the wrong spiritual rabbit hole, back to their loved ones. He doesn’t save them just physically, but mentally and spiritually, a shaman who guides them back to the flock, shepherding them, protecting them. He’s not just a deprogrammer looking to reverse the effects of brainwashing, he’s more. He’s a soul savior.

His latest missing person is a young woman named Katy Endicott, a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who was abducted during a brutal triple homicide. In order to find Katy, Raszer will have to travel deep down the rabbit hole, to where mysticism and reality converge, always careful not to lose himself—and his soul—in the process.

Trying to describe A.W. Hill’s Nowhere-Land is like trying to describe how something tastes without using the word chicken. Extremely difficult, to the point of seeming nearly futile. Forget about putting it neatly in some genre; it’s far beyond genre. It’s like nothing you’ve ever read before, probably like nothing you’ve even imagined before, singular and refreshingly unique. And completely unforgettable.

Hill seamlessly merges together disparate elements in the narrative like mysticism, cults, castration, religious-based alternate reality games and Middle Eastern slavery rings, each element well-researched and imagined, creating an intellectual powerhouse of a novel. Nowhere-Land is stunningly intricate, detailed and erudite, a novel that is both highly philosophical and substantive containing numerous overlapping layers. Which makes Nowhere-Land extremely challenging fiction.

Most of the challenge comes from the mystical, reality-distorting nature of the novel, which is most evident in its last act. Nowhere-Land is the mystical experience, novelized; it is belief, faith and spirituality, described. It’s the visions of Hildegard of Bingen wrapped up in a mystery like an evangelical egg roll. Points in the novel are reminiscent of Plato’s allegory of the cave, surreal moments where the reader emerges from the shadowy confusion of the cave to behold the light and truth outside, finally glimpsing reality, utterly overwhelmed. While disorienting at first, it’s also extremely rewarding, and it makes Nowhere-Land feel mystical. Special. And, strangely, believable.

A.W. Hill’s Nowhere-Land will likely be overlooked by readers due to its challenging subject matter and genre-defying nature. That’s a shame, because it’s one of the most substantive and unique novels I’ve read in years. Clearly, one of this year’s best.

Final Grade: 88 out of 100