Nucleus Metropolis novel review

A few words about the author
Jason Crane is a Canadian writer. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario. He then moved to Vancouver, BC six years ago. Jason Crane does some editing work for Chris Walter of GFY Press in Vancouver. One of his poems will be published in the December issue of Forever Underground Magazine.
Jason is no stranger to the world of the music industry. He played in punk bands in Ontario, Life Like Jesus, Loser, Liquid Butterfly, Cheese Grater, just to name a few.
What the reader should know about Jason Crane is that this author has all qualities needed that make a good writer: an original and descriptive style combined with great suspense. Jason makes you feel and sent the atmosphere of the places he invites you in.
Ready for a further exploration of Jason Crane’s story? Ok, let’s go.
Nucleus Metropolis
Rock Bottom
While introducing you into Michael’s dirty apartment that is located in one of the worst Canadian neighborhoods, Jason Crane offers his readers some insight about the human condition.
Michael belongs to the poor working classes. He lives in one of the dirtiest, unfurnished apartments you could imagine. Dust, cockroaches, mildew, cobwebs, insects belong to the dirty and bad smelling landscape. Besides his sleeping bag and his eating utensils, Michael is totally deprived of material possessions.
Michael works overtime hours for a minimum wage job as a dishwasher. He fully hates his harsh and monotonous job, as well as his boss.
When you’re a poor blue collar worker, it is difficult to leave a world of poverty and misery. People who have already been through harsh situation might feel some sympathy for Jason’s hero. Overcrowded and bad smelling trains are part of the daily stressful situations. Disgusted by the combination of dirty sweat, piss and shit smells, Michael observes people and thinks about the human condition, over and over again.
Meeting Debbie at the club
When you belong to the poorest working classes and you really hate your job, when you feel there is no kind of escape from your misery, you try to find a way to get rid of your spleen. Michael wants to have a good time at a club called the Circus. Not necessarily sexual pleasure, but sipping on several beers and forgetting about his condition for a couple of hours.
Unfortunately, some encounters with people can be fatal to us. While he is about to leave the club, Michael suddenly notices a beautiful girl on the dance floor.
Debbie is a prostitute and a heroin addict. After spending a good time at the club, Debbie asks Michael to be her escort for the rest of the night. She asks him to come with her to a friends’ place. Michael accepts, because he is afraid never to see her again. Such beautiful girls don’t cross his road on a daily basis.
As they approach Debbie’s friend’s desolate and smelly place.
Drugs
« Drugs…Let them drugs control your body…let pills take control of your soul… let’s get high… » Bizarre, Drugs/ DJ PDog The First Metacarpal
The prostitute is looking for some pedophile guy called Slim…she keeps knocking at the door in an enraged effort to get this damn door opened. Since the beginning, Michael has a strange feeling about this disgusting environment. After multiple efforts from Debbie’s side, the door gets unlocked slowly…Slim, some strange muscled, reptile alike man appears at the door, takes the prostitute by the hair, pulls her into the apartment and leaves a speechless Michael at the door. Michael feels insecure in a stinky and unknown neighborhood…
The Slim reopens the door and lets Michael in. As he walks in, Michaels sees Debbie taking an heroine trip, the needle lying on the floor. The apartment could be described as the « addict’s paradise »: pills and white powder are everywhere. Dildos and group sex seem to be part of the game too.
Michael starts negotiating the price of a sexual act with his favorite prostitute.
After enjoying intercourse and slowly realizing the consequences of unprotected sex in this particular unsafe environment, Michael freaks out.
After introducing Michael to several of his fellow addicts, Slim reaches out a bag of cocaine and invites his new « friend » to take some of the powdery white substance. As the needle reaches his vein, Michael is far away, ready for a colorful and intense trip.
The author describes several of Michael’s trips with an amazing descriptive ability. He manages to bring you into an unfamiliar and strange atmosphere. The change of perception and feelings is progressive and Jason Crane transports you from one level to another, traveling through Michael’s brain. While the first trip is quite reassuring, the following trips turn into nightmares and reality is mixed up with a colorful fantasy world.
The drama starts when Michael discovers through his very confused mind that Debbie seems to be lifeless. While trying to share his concern with Slim, the evil pedophile puts him deeper into the world of drugs and Michael goes on tripping…again…
Slim having intercourse with Debbie’s cold dead body is a quite scary scene.
When he eventually emerges from his nightmare trip, Michael realizes that a Debbie’s dead body lies next to him…he is looking for an escape from this situation, but Slim catches him and there we go again: he stick another needle into Michael’s arm who sadly surrenders…
It is up to the reader to guess the end of the story.
A satire of the Canadian society
Not only does Jason Crane describe the world of Canadian neighborhoods and blue collar classes with an amazing precision, he also appeals to his readers’ intelligence and raises some philosophical questions like the meaning of life, God’s existence, human nature and points out the evil and vicious sides of a society of consumption
Jason Crane uses words like a painter draws colorful pictures. Each sentence describes places with an amazing sense of realness and adds some olfactive sensations to the dirty environment he invites his readers in.
If you are familiar with ghetto tales, I highly recommend you Jason Crane’s Nucleus Metropolis. It is the work of a talented writer who manages to captivate his reader from the beginning to the end.
You will be able to order Nucleus Metropolis here.