Blog Tour: Distortion by Gautam Malkani

Hello and welcome to the Random Things Tour for Distortion by Gautam Malkani.

First off I want to say thank you to Anne for having me on this blog tour and to Unbound for sending me a beautiful hardback copy of the book.

Now this book is heavy and not just in the physical sense because it’s a 400 page hardback but like it’s weighty on the brain. I couldn’t read it in one sitting if I tried, I had to take a bit of a break after the first 100 pages to really digest it and another break after the next 100 to process it and then I got the second half in one go. It’s a real mind f**k that’s the only way I can explain my thought process, like every time I felt like I was starting to make sense of where it was going it f**ked me over again. Really trippy!

About The Book

“Meet Dillon, a high-functioning f**k-up who has been keeping some very big secrets from his girlfriend Ramona.

Also, meet Dhilan, a young carer caught in an endless loop of pre-bereavement bereavement for his dying mother.

And then there’s Dylan. The less said about him the better…

These three identities of the same young man have been growing dangerously more hardcore and hardwired, both online and off, thanks to the self-reinforcing effects of social media and search engines, and the uncanny predictive capabilities of his smartphones.

When two creepy old dudes threaten to expose Dillon/Dhilan/Dylan, he is forced to unravel a gut-wrenching mystery that he would rather leave well alone.

Set in a strange greyscape between the digital world and the messy realm of the body, Distortion asks timely questions about what happens when our online data and search histories are crunched up and fed back to us – when they don’t just filter our view of the world, but also our view of ourselves. How can we navigate the tension between emotional truth and factual accuracy? What can we do to neutralise our own toxicity? And what happens in the world of flesh and blood when the roles of parent and child become tragically reversed?”

About The Author

Gautam Malkani’s first novel Londonstani was published in 2006. He lives in London and is available for interview, features and events.

What I Thought

Reading Distortion was a bit like watching Black Mirror, I can only watch an episode every now and then because I need time to process it, I can’t say that I really enjoy it even though I really like it because it makes me feel really uncomfortable and gives that uneasy feeling in my stomach but I still go back for more every time! Distortion made me question how we portray ourselves online and made me look at how Twitter me, Facebook me and Instagram me differ. How much of the real me do I let out and who even is the “real me” anymore?! (Mindf**k)

Distortion is graphic in places with cancer and cancer treatment featuring heavily and there is also a bit of a fetish thing going on. I think quite honestly a lot of this went over my head, while I found it all really interesting having finished the book I still don’t really know what it was about like what the focus was. Was it the bereavement, facing reality or reconnecting with family? I’m not sure, I got a bit lost in some of the technical jargon and I’m kind of still here scratching my head.

A highly intricate interesting read, ideal for the thinkers, the questioners, those who want to look outside the box and dig deep into social media I reckon. Distortion will be out 6th of September.

Again many thanks for having me on this tour it was really interesting, I look forward to seeing what my fellow bloggers think of it. As always all opinions are my own and I am not paid to give them.