(book review)

“The minute you stop looking for Indigo your soul will die”
(Graham Joyce)

Graham Joyce’s magic realism book ‘Indigo’, written in 1999, tells a story with an undetermined ending. Jack Chambers, who hated his father finds out about his death and heads to Chicago to realize his share of the probate. Jack’s primary objective is to publish his father’s manuscript on how to become invisible and how to find Indigo. As he proceeds, he gets to know his father from very different angles. But the key questions are: What is this Indigo? Where to look for it? How to come there?

Seemingly, they are not completely answered, and at the end it is not clear if Jack has found his Indigo. But by analyzing it, we can conclude that each character in the book reached his or her Indigo. Through forbidden love or via a change of scenery, through escaping from problems or via exquisite illusions, through debauchery and…even drugs.

Indigo, as it turned out, is an invisible world in which everyone finds what they seek, finds the questions to the key questions, finds the meaning of life. You can never see it but it’s wrong not to believe in it.

Regarding the pluses: first of all, the book reads very quickly and from the first lines grabs your interest. Secondly, there is no definite ending. There is something resembling a cliffhanger. For me this is a plus in this story. It sounds to me.

The main drawback of the book is that there are too many mysteries killing your interest lit in the beginning. History is so oversaturated with questions that at some moment you just stop seeking the answers. The result is some sort of mush in your head. Upon reading it feels like everything was for nothing.

But, on the whole, there is a lot of philosophizing, psychologizing and reflecting. It puzzles with questions to the self and prompts deep introspection. So I’d recommend reading it. My rating is 8/10.

So…find your own indigo!