The Jigsaw Man
By Gord Rollo
Leisure Books, August 2008


Gord Rollo's The Jigsaw Man has an interesting concept, but the novel is significantly flawed. The narrator, Michael Fox, is a homeless man who has lost his wife and son in a car wreck when they were on their way to picking up Michael, who was too drunk to drive. After that, Michael slips into a degrading life on the streets. A mysterious stranger intervenes in his subsequent suicide attempt with an offer of two million dollars for his right arm. When he takes Michael to the home of a rich scientist named Dr. Marshall, Michael meets several other men like him to whom the mysterious man made similar offers. Dr. Marshall claims his experiments with limb transplants are part of a quest to help his son walk again. When Michael starts snooping around the doctor's mansion, he learns his methods are far more horrifying and ruthless than any of these men could have imagined. The premise is interesting. Unfortunately, what could have been a fun gory ride amounts to a very slow one.

The main problem with this novel stems from the first-person narrator. It would have been interesting to get inside the heads of two or three of the other characters in the story, but the reader is limited to Michael's perspective. Too often, Michael gives lengthy discussions of his feelings and decision making processes. These could have been accomplished in far fewer words. It implicitly asks, "Did you understand?" and then says, "Well, here, let me explain it again." While the author might have been seeking to capture every bit of angst the narrator felt, the result is prose that repeats itself and slows down what could have been a fast-paced novel. Another recurring problem affecting the pacing is the narrator explicitly asking questions of the reader and answering them in the next line. The writer needs to have more faith in the reader's ability to formulate those questions.

The answers he comes up with aren't surprising, so the space devoted to these questions is wasted. One instance of this occurs in what could have been a very tense dinner scene. Michael discusses his decision not to ask questions that could expose his clandestine exploration of Dr. Marshall's home. Michael's life could be in jeopardy at this point, but the narration suddenly turns inward and Michael asks the reader why he should speak up, a move that he considers stupid. He devotes six lines to discussing this, but the reader already has plenty of reason to agree with him; therefore, the paragraph seems unnecessary in this scene. The space could have been devoted to Michael's watching the other characters very closely and actively interpreting their every facial tick and gesture. On these and several other occasions that could have been suspenseful and well-paced, the author's omission of descriptions of the other characters' body language, tone of voice, or motives makes it difficult for the reader to see each scene and share in Michael's building unease. Each scene is more sluggish than suspenseful.

So much of this space that was devoted to Michael's thoughts could have been used to flesh out the supporting characters and antagonists. Most of the conversations consist of a series of lines fired back and forth, punctuated by paragraphs of Michael's long-winded inner thoughts. The author provides few opportunities to visualize the characters before being pulled out of a scene and into Michael's thoughts. Michael is too often focused on Michael. As a result, the characters remain flat and forgettable. Given that, it is more unfortunate that all of the dialogue sounds just like the narration. Dr. Marshall afforded the writer an opportunity to break up this monotony: he is said to have a vaguely Eastern European accent when he is first introduced, but that never affects the way his words are rendered, and the reader is left wondering if the author includes a mention of this trait simply to evoke the mad scientist archetype. This is one of several typical mad scientist traits Dr. Marshall possesses, and this character ends up being just another mad scientist rather than a noteworthy villain. In fact, there are very few interesting turns of phrase or passages that leave any lasting impressions.

Overall, the novel succeeds in taking Michael on a journey that goes from bad to humiliatingly worse, but it's slow-moving. One scene involving some discarded parts and hideous odors stuck with this reviewer, but beyond that, the novel isn't very enjoyable or thrilling. The premise is interesting, but the book is poorly executed.