I’ve managed with the
passing of time to restrain my desire to buy books based exclusively on their
covers. Not always the pleasure of adding a book with a particular cover in my
collection extended into the satisfaction of reading what was in between its
covers. One of the artists who revives my almost uncontrollable desire to buy
books only by seeing the covers he makes for them is Joey Hi-Fi. The covers
made by Joey Hi-Fi for Lauren Beukes’ “Moxyland” and “Zoo City”, Chuck Wendig’s
“Blackbirds”, “Mockingbird” and “The Cormorant”, Tony Ballantyne’s “Dream
London” and for the UK and South African editions of Charlie Human’s “Apocalypse
Now Now” are stunning. His great talent and style send me into a tailspin with
each cover, so much that I tend to submit to a buying spree without any other
consideration for the book in question. I experienced another such moment this
morning when I could admire at Lauren Smith’s excellent blog, Violin in a Void,
the new cover artwork signed Joey Hi-Fi. This time is for a novel by Louis Greenberg, “Dark Windows”. The novel is the first personal project of Louis
Greenberg after the writing collaboration with Sarah Lotz that produced, under
the pseudonym S.L. Grey, several short stories, three novels, “The Mall”, “The
Ward” and “The New Girl”, and two other future ones due to be released by PanMacmillan. “Dark Windows” will be published in South Africa by Umuzi on April
2014 and although my first impulse was to get a copy of the novel as soon as it
is released I’ve succeeded in overcoming the desire and got a look at the
synopsis too. And though Joey Hi-Fi’s artwork remains the main attraction, the
synopsis is interesting enough to make a purchase without many regrets when the
time comes for Louis Greenberg’s “Dark Windows” to be published.
If you head to Lauren Smith’s Violin in a Void, where
the book cover was revealed, you can also read an interview with Joey Hi-Fi.
Dark Windows is set in an alternative-present Johannesburg. A wave of
New-Age belief has radically altered the country’s political landscape,
but not everyone buys into the miracle. Gaia Peace, the party which swept
to power ten years ago on the back of a miracle cure for crime and
a revolutionary social welfare programme, is still firmly ensconced, but
the cracks are showing.
Jay Rowan does his job and doesn’t ask questions. He’s already in
probationary therapy for a drunk driving accident, and he’s not looking
for trouble. Now Kenneth Lang, a veteran political aide, has hired Jay to
paint in the windows of apparently random vacant rooms.
Lang has survived a long career of political change, and is not about to
start questioning orders, even when they are as misguided as senior
minister Meg Hewitt’s latest obsession, project Dark Windows. A mystical
charlatan has convinced her that she can attract a world-changing supernatural
visitation, the Arrival.
Beth Talbot, the married woman Jay is seeing, is compelled by
the supposed suicides of two students in a residence building. Her growing
interest in the case leads her to a seditious student group and back into
the past she’s been trying to avoid.
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