Land of the Blind

Clark Mason, looking like a homeless person, is picked up in an empty hotel and brought to the police station, where detective Caroline Mabry is on duty. He insists on having a homicide to confess. And asks for paper and pen. In the following hours he writes down his life story.

Land of the Blind was a positive surprise, even though I expected a different book. While I expected a crime novel, the book's focus is on the life story of Clark Mason. And how his life is intertwined with the life of Eli Boyle, who saved his life in school. The author does a really good job with the characterization of the two main people, Clark Mason and Eli Boyle. They feel very real. A bit unrealistic is the idea of Clark Mason writing his life story at the police station.

Quotes from the book

The truth hurts only if you're comforted by lies.

Stupid bastard had only been out of prison for two months when the cops stopped his car and found almost a half-kilo of coke in the backseat. Claimed he "found" the drugs outside his apartment.

"I wouldn't mind if somebody finally killed that fucker. He steals everything."

Only in politics does someone in his thirties qualify as a kid.

As we got older most of the bullies and dickheads dropped out or were arrested or they spent their days so stoned that they couldn't muster much antagonism, even toward a shit magnet like Eli Boyle.

"I arrived in Spokane the wife of a millionaire, and when we split up we had four thousand dollars and some stock in this worthless game company."

"Do you know what your problem is, Clark? You decide what you're going to see before you even look at things."

"I just wonder, which is a truer view of reality, the way we see ourselves or the way others see us."

The really shitty thing is this: When someone dies, you never get to see him again. Never. How can you possibly deal with the unfairness of that?

He had long ago given up on the doctors' ability to beat the tumor, saying that it seemed more natural to have the cancer kill him than the doctors.

I was with Max for six months before I realized why we represented drug dealers: partly because Max honestly believed that the police violated civil rights in drug cases and partly because Max needed to be paid in dope.