To further the comparison between the two texts, certain thematic valences notwithstanding, Chapman’s debut is an all but negative image of Gessen’s sophomore effort—disjunctive where Gessen’s narrative is straight ahead; knowing and bawdy and essentially unconcerned with portraying human relationships at any great length.

What is a ghost? Is it an apparition that appears at night to frighten us? Is it a spirit at unrest, refusing to pass on to the next life until it settles a score with our world?

The room is as dark as a crow.

A bright light appears, bathing a group of figures. They pose along a bench, their gazes fixed into empty space.

It will remind you why you struggle through winter after winter, why you wait underground for a train that may never come, why sometimes, despite living in the biggest city in America, you feel so alone.

I recognize the bold colors and simple, graphic drawing style. A hot pink bonfire radiates from the base of what appears to be a vintage wooden paper cutter. The object hangs on the wall across the room from me, its broad handle jutting into the space.

There is a preternatural precision to Hernán Diaz’s every syllable, word, phrase and sentence.  No room to spare.  He doesn’t let you breathe.  What’s more, he is a writer capable of conceptual translation.  He can turn the banal into the fascinating.  He can reduce the complex into the basic.  He can even make the gruesome majestic.