It starts off with someone waking up in someone else's body then goes places.

I really enjoyed this genre bending read and what a great framework for a discussion about identity and being human. I don't really know how to describe it without laboriously regurgitating plot chunks except to say that it is both surprising and gripping. A bit sci-fi, a bit dystopian and a bit of mystery thrown in too.

Well written, good characterisation. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2018/12/review-of-strange-bodies-by-marcel.html ( )

A literary thriller inspired by Frankenstein, cognitive science and metaphysics. The portrayal of a re-embodied Samuel Johnson, seen through the eyes of the protagonist (who, himself, experiences re-embodiment later in the novel) exudes authenticity. The book unrelentingly plumbs the philosophical depths of selfhood.

Framed as autobiography, Marcel Theroux’s novel Strange Bodies follows disenchanted English academic Nicholas Slopen through a murky labyrinth of literary fraud and scientific espionage. In the brief preface, a woman describes an encounter with her former boyfriend Nicholas, who she thought was dead. Physically the man claiming to be Nicholas Slopen does not resemble the man she was involved with 20 years earlier, but his memories of their time together are complete and persuasive. The remainder of the novel is made up of a manuscript she finds on a flash drive, left behind after Slopen’s sudden death. Incarcerated in a mental institution, Slopen narrates a story that begins innocently enough, with a wealthy music producer and collector of literary artefacts named Hunter Gould seeking his advice regarding the authenticity of newly discovered letters supposedly written by Samuel Johnson, letters that Gould is considering purchasing. Slopen’s investigation into the Johnson letters brings him into contact with a group of mysterious characters from the former Soviet Union and a situation that, as gradually becomes clear, is not at all what it first appears to be. As the improbable events pile up, Slopen comes to realize that everyone involved is hiding something, and the mystery only deepens once Slopen learns where the letters originated. From there he is sucked into a churning vortex of deception, trickery and scientific hubris that places him and those he loves in mortal danger. To give away more of the plot would be a disservice to an enormously engaging and intelligent novel that delivers twists and bombshells aplenty and an author of great imaginative gifts. Let it be said that in Strange Bodies, Marcel Theroux speculates how the experience of being human would be altered if our lives were not necessarily tethered to the mortal carcass in which we were born. His dramatic exploration of this question is provocative and entertaining. ( )

This never quite lived up to the good things I'd heard about it. I found the first three quarters of the book well written but ultimately not engaging enough for it to be one of those novels you just have to read. That said I read the final section in one setting and it is beautifully written and evokes a deep sympathy with the protagonist that I just hadn't been feeling up until that point - and saved this from being a two star review. ( )