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A while back, I was invited to review Todd Keisling’s A Life Transparent, the flagship title now available from new contender Precipice Books.

I didn’t know what to expect.

I agreed to read it because Keisling is a friend. Besides that, he has always loyally supported my own projects, and I was eager to see what his material was like. Even though that’s the case, I warned him when he sent me the ARC that if I hated it, I would have to tell him, and that it would be nothing personal.

He wanted a comment for the cover, but I wasn’t about to bullshit. I told him I’d blurb it if I sincerely, objectively could, but that I made no promises. I was going to be brutal and candid, friendship or no friendship. He bravely sent me the manuscript anyway. Big cojones, that one.

Digging in for the first few pages, I wasn’t sure where he was going. I honestly had no idea whether I’d like it. It didn’t start off as an unusual story; in fact, the first twenty paragraphs sounded pretty normal and benign. We had a murder, a boring salesman, and a frustrated housewife with a cat named Mr. Precious Paws. But by twelve pages down, I had totally fallen in. All I saw were smooth visuals. It played seamlessly, like a movie. 

(Hey, wait—do I get an agent’s cut for being the first one to say that when it becomes a blockbuster later on? Todd? Hey, Todd?)

But my final verdict?

A Life Transparent is a whirlwind ride through the monstrosities of everyday life and the mental bloodshed that comes through choosing to live creatively.

It kicked my ass. That’s the nutshell. Here’s the story.

Our hero, Donovan Candle, works in the sales department of an identity protection service, and has for the nine years since he graduated college. It’s boring as all hell. He wakes, does the dancing-monkey corporate workday thing, and sleeps. Repeat.

On a certain morning, he wakes to find his hands flickering in and out of sight, disappearing and reappearing with a will all their own. He doesn’t freak out until his penis does the same thing. That seems to be a bit too much to take in mentally.

The more often Donovan flickers, the more he realizes that people in the world around him are able to see him less and less. Even when he’s corporeal, he can muster no reaction: there are no return replies, no smiles on the street, no more goodnight kisses from his wife.

He is being forgotten.

Convinced he’s crazy, he makes the best of the situation until venturing home one day to find his beloved wife missing, a steak knife through his cat, and blood coating his kitchen.

It’s quickly made clear to Donovan that everything is related, and to save himself—and his wife—he must jump into a world not his own and race for the answer, swallowing his pride along the way.

And that’s just the beginning.

Later on we have eight-foot-tall, pasty, waiflike creatures with beady black eyes, dragging knuckles in a primordial chase through the city. We have miniature white imps reminiscent (well, to me anyway) of the gravelings in Dead Like Me, who take up residence on the shoulders of those scheduled to fall prey next. And we have the hyper-powered, oddly-assembled god of the lacking world, Aleister Dullington, who calls all the shots and shows no mercy.

And somehow, even with all the elements above which may sound like pure fantasy and too much to aid willing suspension of disbelief, Keisling absolutely pulls it off. The story itself is so believable, so almost eerily familiar, that it’s unsettling to even the most cynical reader, which I invariably am.

The closest thing I can relate it to falls somewhere between The Langoliers and The Matrix, but with more of a Memento kind of urgency and some Donnie Darko archetypes in the pages between. It’s dark. It’s fast. It’s intelligent. Anything that can manage all three–and manage them well–impresses me.

I had nightmares about this book. And I don’t do that. My dreams for a day or two were stark and changing and slide-y, and once I woke in a sweat. This from a girl who usually rolls her eyes at any attempts of terror, no matter how subtle nor well-written they may be. I do not scare. I do not internalize. I analyze only; but this one sucked me in whole.

This book doesn’t try to be a horror novel. There is no pretension, no didactic stance. The story somehow arcs in a true-to-life yet creepy direction; just enough to rattle my nerve. Just enough to make me wonder, hesitate, and occasionally check the shower mirror over my shoulder in mock suspense. (Well, I think it’s mock suspense, anyway. Hope so.)

And maybe that’s what it’s all about… maybe I should have frightening thoughts more often. Daring to live is the scariest thing we learn to do, and A Life Transparent serves as a vivid wakeup call to those of us who have morphed into adults and fallen complacent.

As Keisling shows us, there are few things worse than realizing you’ve disappeared.

~*~*~*~

A Life Transparent is available in digital, perfect bound, and hardcover formats. If you want to buy a copy or read a free excerpt, you should go here. Or here. Either way, make sure you watch the trailer. It’s pretty groovy.

FCC disclosures: I paid for a personal copy of this book through a Kickstarter donation, and have not received any money, merchandise, promises, or favors for publishing this review.