PositiveFull StopKathryn Davis’s novel Duplex reads like a waking dream. Davis’s sentences channel that half-state between consciousness and unconsciousness, that foggy place where you realize you’re waking up but are still enraptured by the vivid imagery that’s been parading through your head all night ... Davis’s approach to introducing the various sci-fi/fantasy elements throughout the book is to operate under the assumption that nothing is out of the ordinary ... This narrative style is in keeping with the dreamlike quality of the prose — Davis is counting on our accepting everything we’re told as fact, as if there’s no reason why things should be any other way ... Going into it expecting a typical dramatic structure is as futile as attempting to impose such strictures on your dreams. In some ways, the absence of that familiar backbone is what makes the novel so absorbing ... I was so enthralled with unraveling and absorbing the details of this weird, wonderful fictional world that I had trouble relating to any of the characters in it ... I reached the end of the book dazzled by Davis’s vast imagination and beautifully expressive language, but largely unaffected by the characters’ journeys.
