Jonathan Baumbach

Bluechrome Publishing
The Week You Weren't Here
by: Charles Blackstone

A mid-20s American writer, college graduate (almost), and occasional philosopher. Well, that´s at least how his Internet dating profile reads. Hunter Flanagan in reality, or more accurately inside, is obsessive, disturbing, and ambiguous. The Week You Weren´t Here is a highly original and experimental story that takes you into the mind of Hunter on his journey from living inside his head into the outside world. Through postmodern prose that unravels jaggedly like a spool of live wire, the narrative seeks to make sense out of his landscape, as it reveals it to be a fragmented, overlapping, entangled juggernaut of a young life. We recognise and sympathise, laugh and loathe, at the mass of contradictions that are his thoughts, his actions and reactions. Hunter is as well versed in literary theory as he is in 1980s pop culture but still can´t find the love that relentlessly eludes him despite his best intentions. You´ll fall in love with Hunter Flanagan, but at the same time, you´ll be relieved that your own confessions, t-shirts, and e-mails will never be analyzed by him. You will also find it hard not to admire the brilliance of this entertaining and poignant debut by author Charles Blackstone.

Review by Jessa Crispin of Bookslut/Reviews
December 08, 2003
Fiction
The Week You Weren't Here
Written by Charles Blackstone

Hunter Flanagan is the remarkable creation of Charles Blackstone’s The Week You Weren’t Here. A neurotic, scathing creature, Hunter writes out his catalog of women. There’s Jessica the actress, Hilary the cheater, Kate the graphic designer, Helaine the former obsession, Lila the sorority girl, Eileen the “defect,” Colleen the dead girl, and on and on. You have to start a list or a flow chart to keep them straight. Hunter floats through these women, seeing four or five at a time, rarely delving much deeper than a few dates. Instead he puts them on a pedestal and watches them fall.

Hunter seems to be analyzing every aspect of his life, but really he’s just skimming the surface and picturing himself the way he wishes to be seen. On page 56, it is revealed that Hunter is not the dirty old man he’s written to be; he’s only 24. Blackstone writes Hunter with such a weary, seen-it-all voice it’s almost hard to believe. It’s mostly a put on, his constant fatalism. He is so lonely, so rejected, such a failure with women. Yet he’s juggling women and forever going on first dates. It’s not that he’s a failure with women, it’s that he fails to see them as full human beings. To him they are a collection of their attributes.

The style of the book invites the reader to psychoanalyze Hunter Flanagan. When he confesses he lives with his mother but she fails to appear in the novel, the reader wants to sit him down on the couch and ask, “How’s your relationship with your mother? Interesting. Does that relationship remind you of your treatment of any other women you know?” The book is written in third person, but Hunter is the only focus. The sentence structure of the book is as twisted as Hunter’s mind. “She’ll be so fucking moved by how totally depressing sad ruined dejected trampled upon I am that she’ll want to –“ he writes before zooming off onto another topic, the sentence unfinished. Also unfinished is his first novel, a book he hopes will help him get into a good graduate school. “He knew the manuscript needed some substantial editing. He wished not to have to be the one appointed with that duty…” His work is autobiographical, and there’s something very telling in that statement. He wishes to not examine and dissect his work, just as he’d rather not examine and dissect his life. He is an unwilling therapy subject.

But surprisingly, Hunter invites sympathy. He does not treat women well, he blames them for his own failings (“[Kathryn] made him fail lab.”), and he actively despises a girl he’s leading on. Yet when Hunter himself is led on and dumped, the reader feels for him. Perhaps it’s that he is as quick to criticize himself as he is his women. Or perhaps it’s that for all his self-reflection, he is still rather clueless. Before a date he muses, “Maybe abortion and political parties and the death penalty would be good in-person conversations to have.” He keeps an impossible check list of attributes for these women and of course no one lives up to it. Blackstone gracefully keeps him tottering on the precipice between romantic hero and irredeemable cad. It’s a compelling balancing act to watch.

The Week You Weren’t Here is one of the first books published by the “ethical” publisher Flame Books. Blackstone is an original voice. If he’s indicative of the quality of work Flame Books will be publishing, they’re going to be a force to reckon with on the literature scene.

The Week You Weren’t Here is the debut novel from American writer Charles Blackstone. It’s a postmodernist novel written almost entirely within the head of 24yearold male Hunter Flanagan, wannabe writer and occasional philosopher. The book follows Hunter through his daytoday life as he nervously applies to grad school and, more importantly from his point of view, attempts to find true love through an Internet dating service. Woody Allen meets James Joyce so to speak.

Hunter’s head is quite an interesting place to visit but I certainly wouldn’t want to live there – he is obsessive and overanalyses everything and everyone he meets. He is also a 24yearold male so you can guess what occupies his mind most of the time (it’s not quite every six seconds but it’s pretty close). Hunter dates a number of different women at the same time during this book and his rationale is so good it has to be mentioned – he can be a much better date if she’s not the only prospect he has lined up, as he’s much less nervous. Not a strategy I suggest to the majority of males who might be thinking he’s onto something.

This book demands that you give it your full attention as Hunter’s thoughts fly from one moment to the next. If you have a tendency (like me) to go into ‘skim reading mode’ you can get utterly lost. It’s also not always interesting enough to hold your full attention, as, like most of us, a lot of Hunter’s thoughts are pretty meaningless. There are however a few gems that will make you laugh out loud and shock you into silence. For a female, it is also a rather interesting peek into the male psyche (crazy place that it is). Mind you I have to say if I thought all men were like Hunter Flanagan I might just give up now.

Nobody could call him boring though and if you are looking for something a bit different then you might want to give this a go. It’s not destined to become one of my all time favourites but I am glad I read it and as a voyeuristic peek into someone else’s mind, Charles Blackstone could have done a lot worse than the lovably neurotic Hunter Flanagan.

© Amy Morgan

A mid-20s American writer, college graduate (almost), and occasional philosopher. Well, that´s at least how his Internet dating profile reads. Hunter Flanagan in reality, or more accurately inside, is obsessive, disturbing, and ambiguous.

The Week You Weren´t Here is a highly original and experimental story that takes you into the mind of Hunter on his journey from living inside his head into the outside world. Through postmodern prose that unravels jaggedly like a spool of live wire, the narrative seeks to make sense out of his landscape, as it reveals it to be a fragmented, overlapping, entangled juggernaut of a young life. We recognise and sympathise, laugh and loathe, at the mass of contradictions that are his thoughts, his actions and reactions. Hunter is as well versed in literary theory as he is in 1980s pop culture but still can´t find the love that relentlessly eludes him despite his best intentions. You´ll fall in love with Hunter Flanagan, but at the same time, you´ll be relieved that your own confessions, t-shirts, and e-mails will never be analyzed by him. You will also find it hard not to admire the brilliance of this entertaining and poignant debut by author Charles Blackstone.