For Eli, nothing ever ends.
Mostly because he can't finish anything. He can't quit his terrible job that he's never going to progress in, he can't finish his relationship even though he doesn't want to be with his girlfriend, he can't stop going to the same pub along the route home from work every day, and he can't finish writing a novel despite starting 733 first chapters.
But then, his best friend Mike ends something in the most final way possible - death. But instead of pain and grief, Eli finds a new sense of determination in the wake of Mikes suicide - the determination to finally finish everything he's been putting off. To see something through until the end.
So, he picks up a pen. He writes again. He will get to chapter two this time. But there's something about the stories on Eli's pages that don't seem quite right. They're somewhere between fact and fiction, between speculation and sinister. And as his own stories move forward, he might just find the truth about Mike- the truth that could have been plucked from the pages of a horror story.
Will Carver has a way with words that is difficult to describe and even harder to categorise into a genre or style. Much like Eli, Carver manages to balance on that razor-thin line between fact and fiction, creating situations so outrageously terrifying that feel uncomfortably realistic.
Eli is an enigma wrapped in a puzzle - soon after meeting him we discover there's more to him that the cold, methodical man who knows exactly the amount of steps between his office and his local pub. There's something under the surface - a man who lives in the real world but also one of his own creation, living in a blurry grey area between reality and imagination. We get to see the world through his convoluted, confusing gaze and are left to try and decipher the truth ourselves - but can you really trust anything you see through the eyes of someone like Eli?
We also get to see from the perspectives of Eli's other non-finished jobs - his girlfriend Jackie, and Mike. Their characters were carefully crafted to keep us at arms length, not quite letting us know their secrets so we're left to discover them along with Eli.
With rapidly changing perspectives, as well as written extracts of stories, mystery text exchanges and conversations with imaginary therapists - we get engrossed in a world that is dark and mysterious, getting glimpses of before and after everything changed. It's a fast-paced story that jumps erratically from time and place but everything is perfectly planned out so the reader doesn't get lost in the noise.
The atmosphere is suffocating throughout - tense, uncomfortable and dark. The way Carver uses the smallest details like the colour of a sofa or the texture of a floor almost feels like too much but instead completely traps you in a vivid setting.
Honestly, this book is fucking weird. It's confusing in the most compelling way. The narrators are untrustworthy and unreliable. You can't always tell what is happening - and I loved every chaotic moment of it.
About the Author
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Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award 2020 and Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for Guardian Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by three standalone literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous (both optioned for TV) and The Daves Next Door.
He lives in Reading with his family.
Follow Will at @will_carver
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CW: suicide, sex, swearing, drinking, drug use.
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