Action, genre-bending and a taste of philosophy
Part western, part mystery, part sci-fi, with plenty of plot twists to boot
Genre fiction is made healthier through crossbreeding. In The Blinds Adam Sternbergh, who grew up in Toronto and now lives in Brooklyn, has created a multi-layered hybrid of a novel strengthened by several different bloodlines.
In the first place we might think of it as a western. Calvin Cooper is the sheriff of the town of Caesura, a place known locally (and less pretentiously) as The Blinds. It’s a dusty desert town, or “glorified trailer park,” set down in the middle of a West Texas nowhere, with the only link to the outside world being a weekly mail-and-supplies run and a clunky fax machine.
Sheriff Cooper doesn’t have much to do in The Blinds, seeing as there are only about fifty residents and he’s the only one with a gun. Or at least he’s supposed to be the only one with a gun. The western turns into a mystery when residents of The Blinds start turning up dead.
What makes solving the mystery tricky is a science-fiction spin. You see, the residents of The Blinds have had their memories selectively wiped as part of an advanced “fresh start” program for criminals. The town is actually a kind of penal colony. So the question of “whodunit?” is complicated by the fact that nobody even knows who he or she really is.
This is just the set-up, but things get even weirder. In some ways The Blinds resembles M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, with layers of mystery enfolding the town and its history that are only gradually revealed. Also like Shyamalan’s movie are the many rapid-fire and bizarre plot twists that come at the end.
On a deeper level, The Blinds is a novel that asks interesting questions about how our memories make us who we are. The nature vs. nurture argu- ment over criminal responsibility is lying in the background here. Is someone who can no longer remember their past crimes still responsible for them, or even the same person who committed them? And to what extent do the subjects in this progressive experiment still have free will?
These philosophical questions are secondary, however, to the busy, action-filled plot.
The Blinds is first and foremost a fun read, or really about half-a-dozen reads rolled together in one. Alex Good is a frequent contributor to these pages.