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Going down

David Markson

1970278 pagesabout 4–6 hours
1970
first published
  • 1970Holt, Rinehart, Winston · 278 pages · ENGISBN 9780030842818
  • 2002Herdias · ENGISBN 9781928746270
  • 2005Shoemaker & Hoard · 288 pages · ENGISBN 9781593760649

Unlike David Markson’s most recent works, including Vanishing Point and Wittgenstein’s Mistress, which David Foster Wallace described as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country," his early novel, Going Down, is a more traditional effort, a masterfully plotted narrative set in Mexico in the 1960s. Three Americans, a man and two women, are living together in obvious intimacy. Their habits, strange to the Mexicans, are strangest of all to themselves.

How it reads

Character focusSmall ensemble
ComplexityExperimental

Worth knowing

Romance levelCentral

When and where

PlaceVillage
How do you feel?