INSPECTION by Josh Malerman is an unremitting classic

The following book review was originally published on theforgottenfiction.com

INSPECTION by Josh Malerman is an unremitting classic, as is the signed limited edition of the novel by Earthling Publications.

The thing about INSPECTION that is so unnerving is that it is entirely plausible.

The main character J is one of twenty-six twenty-four Alphabet Boys growing up in a school where their adopted father, D.A.D., and his Inspectors and staff have withheld the very existence of the female gender from the boys their entire lives so that they are “undistracted” in pursuit of academic and artistic greatness.

This book is a new favorite of mine! INSPECTION is visceral, poignant, moving, and frightening, and, man oh man, that ending packs a wallop!

The world-building, the characters, the prose could not be woven together better, like a song, or be more impactful.

“Oh, J knew the inspections were for his own good.” [INSPECTION, Josh Malerman, p.86]

That very line sends a shiver up my spine.

If a boy fails a daily inspection to the point where they are dubbed “rotten”, then they will be sent to The Corner, an infamous, hidden place from which two of their brothers have gone but never returned.

That threat is nearly as ingrained as some of the specifics it is wrapped in by D.A.D. – the diseases that disobeying can bring – and therein, the need for Inspections, for every day of their twelve-year-old lives.

The boys are even fed books crafted to them to teach specific lessons and to be devoid of any female terminology.

In a world where so many struggle and generations of youth have to learn history in schools where books are banned and/or censored into incoherence, the brilliant and twisted premise of Malerman’s INSPECTION borders on prescience.

And you will not be able to put this book down.

Read the rest below or on TFF.