A Story of Risk, Recklessness and Uncertainty: Plow or In the Hollows
Written by Katie Barr
Some books are easy to describe once you have finished them. Others leave you thinking about what you have just read, trying to work out exactly why it affected you. For me, Saz Keukan’s Plow or In the Hollows was much more of the latter.
The novel follows Patrick, a married man whose job has become such a large part of his identity that, when everything starts to fall apart, he does not seem to know what is left. Already struggling, he heads to Las Vegas with Nikolai, James, Rob, Jim and Grant, hoping that blackjack might help him recover financially. Patrick owes $50,000 to his former employer, but the trip is about much more than money.
I found the gambling particularly effective because it becomes a reflection of Patrick himself. The idea of “plowing” – continuing to put winnings back into the next hand – gives the novel its title and says a lot about the way Patrick approaches life. He keeps going, even when the sensible option would be to stop. It is tense because you are constantly waiting to see whether the next decision will push him too far.
“The uncertainty added tension and made the Vegas scenes feel increasingly chaotic.”
The part I found most challenging was the structure. Keukan writes without the usual quotation marks and clear dialogue tags, and with several characters speaking together, I sometimes struggled to work out who was actually talking. There were points where I had to reread a section because I had lost track of the speaker. Normally, that would take me out of a book, but here it added something. The uncertainty added tension and made the Vegas scenes feel increasingly chaotic. Instead of standing outside the story, you feel caught up in the noise and confusion with Patrick.
Sentences run on, conversations blur into one another and the atmosphere becomes almost feverish. At times I found this overwhelming, but it gives the novel its distinctive feel. It is not trying to make Patrick’s experience neat or comfortable for the reader. The shift after Patrick and his friends go their separate ways at the airport also stood out to me. His phone conversation with his estranged twin sister, Henrietta, gives a clearer sense of the person underneath everything that has happened in Vegas. It is quieter, but made me think more about what Patrick was searching for.
“Keukan leaves room for uncertainty rather than handing the reader an easy answer.”
What I liked most is that Plow is not simply a story about gambling, alcohol or a reckless weekend in Vegas. Underneath all of that is a bigger question about how someone finds their way out of a life that no longer feels sustainable. Keukan leaves room for uncertainty rather than handing the reader an easy answer.
This was not the easiest book I have read, and the structure took some getting used to. However, once I understood what Keukan was doing with that blurred, breathless style, I found myself much more invested. Plow or In the Hollows is unusual, tense and sometimes disorientating, but that is also what makes it memorable.
All content is original to The Literary Lounge. Review written by Katie Barr. All reviews are written without incentive.
Featured and in-article images taken from Goodreads. No changes were made to these images.
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