Review: Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle by James Christopher Maddox

       I didn’t know the past of Sean Stewart. In truth, I still don’t. Through various channels, I’ve heard that he did work on the cult-fav video game The Beast, but I had not (still have not) played it. After reading Perferct Circle, I noticed his name set on the cover of a Star Wars novelization; however, this wasn’t in my range of interest. Suffice it to say, I was interested in Sean Stewart for one thing: A ghost story. This is exactly what I got, and just for kicks I’ll add on the obligatory “AND MORE!!!” for good measure.

      Before going into it, I had the feel of the novel. This was largely thanks to the way I had come across the book. I happen to be a reader of the adorable little print lit-mag called Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and aside from printing some of the best fiction in the world, they have this wonderful habit of including all these little extras for their subscribers. In one such bundle came a small comic book that covered a short scene from Perfect Circle. After reading that, it took about a week and a half to get the book in the mail, as I ordered it from Small Beer Press directly.

      I happen to be a slow reader. I have this style that likes to browse each page, not just picking up the words as I skim, but savoring them, the way one might go through an odd routine before taking down a glass of wine. So it usually takes me about a week to get through a book of 300 pages, and that’s if I’m really trying. Perfect Circle was an exception. I kept reading faster than usual, wanting to see what happened in the next scene. I cared about the characters. I worried about their futures. I wanted to solve their problems. I went through emotions that are hard for a novel to get out of me, and by the time it was finished, I breathed a sigh of relief and put it back in the stack of books near my bed—a stack for books I would read in the next couple of months.

      Simply put, it was damned good. Intellectual with a highly speculative edge: Only the writing could kill that kind of combination. Obviously, Stewart was up to the challenge.

      But there was something more to it than being well written.

      Stewart has chronicled a boring life, filled with the same rituals and pitfalls that I’ve fallen into—and I’m sure I won’t be alone in this—but beyond that, the fact that his character is becoming a man is readily evident. Still lost in the world, without a firm understanding of who he is, or who he wants to be, Stewart’s protagonist stumbles among the missed opportunities like a drunkard in the village square.

      With Will “Dead” Kennedy, Stewart has given us a guy that we’ve all met before. He’s the guy that fucked up quite a few times, is liable to fuck up again, but for some reason we still care about his well-being. Then he added the drop of blood in the water that gave everything a light pink hue of abnormality; he gave Will the ability to talk to the dead. All the other things still apply—the daughter that’s more of a parent than our protagonist ever will be, the ex-wife that left him, her 180-degree new husband, the odd family relations. He’s chronicled these familiar aspects, but he’s also thrown in something that we haven’t had a hand in, like ghosts and the whole spectrum of happenings that go with that world.

      This new world is what I was interested in, but I found that I was getting more into the more familiar side of things than I was the aspect of the unknown.

      Before this gets too out of hand, let me just give Perfect Circle a big thumbs up and say that you should go into this book hoping for all those things you like in a ghost story, but don’t be surprised when the everyday stuff keeps you page-turning.

Grade: A