Book Review: Into the Current

Into the Current • A novel
By Jared Young 

378 pages • ISBN 978-0-86492-889-4

Daniel Solomon is not having a good day. Somewhere between Bangkok and Tokyo, zipping through the stratosphere, the  jetliner on which he is travelling cracks open like an egg, ejecting Daniel and his fellow passengers into the  great blue sky.

If only that were the worst of it.

Thousands of feet above the merciless Earth, still strapped into his seat, his cherished comic books fluttering away like freed parrots, Daniel finds out what it means to have your life flash before your eyes.

Time stops, the wreckage of the plane freezes in place, postponing the inevitable end, and Daniel finds that he can transport himself back into his past. Re-experiencing his memories in real time, but helpless to change the present, he plunges into the detritus of his all-but-concluded life.

In this daring and often hilarious novel, Jared Young defies the laws of physics and the conventions of narrative to explore the twists and turns of great sex and bad decisions, chance and grand design, and the moments of truth that can turn disaster into a mere interruption on the horizon.

This work could be cataloged as an international, philosophical and unforgettable piece which reminds us of the importance of living each moment as if it were the last.

Jared Young grew up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and currently resides in Ottawa. His writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, Bangkok Past, Ottawa Citizen, Maisonneuve, and The Walrus; it has also been anthologized in McSweeney´s. He is the co-founder of Dear Cast and Crew, and a creative director at the advertising agency McMillan.