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Book Review of Man Walks Into a Room

Man Walks Into a Room
reviewed on + 147 more book reviews


This book was on someone's recommended reading list so I added it to my paperbackswap.com wish list and recently got the book. It's a slim book (248 pages). The writing is OK. The prologue is about a 1957 bomb test in the SW US desert. The book begins in 2000 when a 30+ man was found wandering in the Las Vegas area. He has no memory of the last 23 years of his life but his identity is learned and he returns to the eastern US and his wife. The reader then follows his life from that point. I kept waiting to see how this tied into the prologue.

When I'm reading a book--especially as I near the end--I have a pretty good idea of how I would rate the book. With this one, however, I was somewhat befuddled. I definitely didn't think it warranted 4 or 5 stars. The story started out promising but about midway through (after the experiment in the desert when we learn the connection to the prologue), things seemed to fall apart. POSSIBLE SPOILERS: Many of Samson's actions seemed completely ridiculous--running after a bus because a young woman inside reminded him of a younger version of his wife; his stealing of his brain tissue slides from the hospital; his long taxi ride to visit his great-uncle in a senior living facility and his then surreptiously leaving with his great-uncle; then traveling with great-uncle to Samson's childhood home to trespass in the middle of the night. END OF SPOILERS

I didn't find Samson to be a particularly sympathetic character. The ending was also unsatisfying.