Have you ever read a book that you thought you needed to take a shower each time you picked it up? Rapture is one of those books. It's icky. Depressing. Leaves you with a hopeless view of the universe. Everyone is doomed in this book. It's one creep-ass ride to hopeless hell. Hide the razor blades.

Good ol' sociopath Jeff isn't sure what he wants. He is a successful high-tech businessman who never seemed to find the thing that made him happy in life. Pushing forty, with a failed marriage and gobs of dough he goes back east from California to his father's funeral. He just might look up some old friends from twenty years ago as long as he's back in the old stomping grounds, you know. He's a nice guy, just doesn't seem to connect with people and a little obsessive about work and drinking, you know. He's going to look up Georgianne, a girl he never dated but one that was always around, you know. She was okay, but they just never got together and you move away, become successful, you know. Ol' Jeffy doesn't even know himself what he's looking for but he's gonna try hard, real hard, to get it once it latches on to him. You know.

I call this a slippery slope book. Once the protagonist thinks he realizes what he wants, he's already danced too far out on that slippery slope to hang on. He's goin' down, as they say.

I'm not sure if it's intentional or just stupid luck but the dumbed-down narration fools you into thinking there has to be more to this than meets the eye. It's just too matter of fact. But the web gets spun by the shifting POV and the fact that the narration is just so straight forward, there are no hidden agendas, no tricks. Where you think the narrator must be hiding something, he isn't. I thought in the end this was so straight forward that there wasn't going to be any money shot, but Tessier saves it for the last page and then springs it on you.

It's hard to say I was "entertained" by this book. Like some of Patricia Highsmith's writing it is so depressing and the characters just drag you down. To say this book did not have an effect on me however would be lying. At one point I considered just abandoning it after a particularly depressing section because I wasn't doing so well myself. ( )