Eugene Marten's In the Blind takes readers through a keyhole and shows it to be a tunnel, a cave -- a way through to a hard-earned light. The speaker in this astonishing novel has been released from the boiler room dark of prison, but he is not free. He must move on at an angle against all that has been subtracted from the world he returns to, and always against the bleak weight of memory. By accident he finds work in a locksmith's shop, and something in the dark inner spaces of the locks speaks to him of a universe of locks, and to the prospect of a concentration that will open the way to breathable air.

With the uncanny precision of observation found in Cormac McCarthy's Suttree, and the eerie mystery of Don Delillo's The Body Artist, Marten generates a narrative that enthralls. When released by the book's amazing close, readers will find themselves in the new light cast by this novel, and with a hunger for more of Eugene Marten's fine work.