The Speed of Dark
Joram Piatigorsky
“The Speed of Dark reveals how the author, his mother the daughter of the French Rothschild banking dynasty and his father a world-renowned cellist, broke the chain of his lineage of art, music and banking to establish an important career in science. ”
Just because you can write, that doesn’t mean you should write. Equally, even if everyone else in your family has written a memoir, that doesn’t mean you need to. There needs to be something unique or exciting, some motto that someone else can gain from your life. This book had none of this.
I started off dead bored with this book, and it didn’t improve from there. First, Piatigorsky describes both his parents – one a renowned cellist, the other an expensive Rothschild. Then, we slowly saw his progression through science, from a beginning scientist through to a renowned lab head. Somewhere in that progression I lost patience with the book offering me something interesting and new, and I just started skipping/skimming pages.
I got nothing from this memoir. I wasn’t overcome by feelings for someone who overcame insurmountable odds. Also, forgive me for saying so, it’s just another “white man” memoir, and that’s certainly not something we need in the current climate. He has money to spare, which although he describes how he tried not to rely on this crutch, it’s blatantly clear that he could do whatever he wanted because he had the family to back it up.
I am a molecular biologist of sorts (mainly I teach), so that’s why I decided I’d review this book. Sadly, it didn’t give me anything interesting. Perhaps I should have gone with his fiction or other non-fiction choices? It’s too late now, I’m completely browned off and too disappointed to keep reading. I’m sad I wasted my precious reading time on this book.
I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.
Part guidebook, part travel diary, this book explored backpacking with two young children in tow – and that it can be done! One thing that made no sense to me was that the family had a whole heap of debt, and basically had nothing at the end of their trip. Yet they were sure their jobs would still be there when they got home? I couldn’t imagine going overseas with so little cash that a flight out might actually could have been impossible. Also, the last chapter jumps forward a year, and I felt cheated that I didn’t hear about how they readapted to living in a Western society.
What was with Simon’s grandfather? Reality vs non-reality was really quite confusing. And the ending was too neat to be true. In a true dystopian setting, this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t want there to be a happily ever after. I had engaged with the characters to the extent that I actually empathised maybe a little bit too much with the ‘bad guys’? I never liked Simon that much, so I would have been happy to see him killed off.
I somehow didn’t have as much empathy as I could have for the Children. Real AI, that knows it’s alive and can think for itself? That hasn’t freaked me out for a while, I accept the inevitability of robot overlords eventually! And I’m quite cruisy with the idea from 
The opening scene of this novel took me off guard, because I didn’t really want to read about a self-absorbed rich kid who had a giant nose. I couldn’t have cared less about whether he was 6 foot and sunbathing naked on the lawn. I definitely couldn’t have cared less about the fact that his parents didn’t like him, and that his dad took his driving iron to his expensive, fancy gear.
This was almost real-world believable. Apart from the ghosts. But she hadn’t known about the ghosts. It’s fascinating how LaCour is able to step inside a tortured psyche and make it so that her readers are imprinted into the novel themselves. By this I mean that almost any person who has undergone trauma could see how this related to them.
Let’s start off by stating that this is not an easy read. This is a terrifying read. It is not comfortable or comforting. You’re going to want to put trigger warnings on it for suicide, bullying and child sexual abuse. This is an #ownvoices novel from this author, and the authenticity of the writing is heartbreaking in parts. It lead to this being a compulsive read for me.