I really didn't expect to love this as much as I did. The Reactor is, in the most general sense, a memoir that tries to approach grief by relating it to radioactive decay (and particularly the Chernobyl disaster). Studies on grief seem to be a thing right now, and I have to say I tend to be somewhat sceptical about the kind of symbolic generalization that can come with it. However, Blackburn isn't too keen on that either - basically, this book is a perpetual reflection of his inability to actually make sense of anything, least of all the death of his father. This deliberate no-sense-making feels raw, unfinished, like a sketch. In essayistic(ish) fragments, the reader follows Blackburn along an unruly path where the next step is often less determined by cohesive structure than it is by associative references. He never loses his thread, though: this strange kaleidoscopic genre-mix will pull you in like a maelstrom.

This is the most fantastic coloring book I know, and I mean that in both definitions of the word:
1.: extraordinarily good/ attractive.
2.: imaginative/ fanciful; remote from reality.
It usually takes me weeks to complete even one page, but then it makes a wonderful present; especially when appropriately framed!

Letters of James Smetham, With an Introductory Memoir

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