Book Review : J. David Osborne - Tomahawk (2021)
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I don’t know about you, but I miss the part of my life that felt unscripted. Unplanned evenings that turn into important moments. Random encounters that end up being lifelong friends. You know what I’m talking about. The older you get, the more you make your every move purposeful because you have less and less time left. Randomness is the luxury of the young, but I’ve found a way to live it again through J. David Osborne’s Black Gum cycle.
The quest for meaning and existential shenanigans are back in what is perhaps its finest volume yet: Tomahawk
Tomahawk picks up not that far off after the events of A Minor Storm. Our narrative still lives with no nonsense construction worker Charlie and balding, face tattooed weirdo shaman Shane. While minding their own business, tripping balls on LSD and playing frisbee in a public park, our friends encounter Oklahoman Nazis who Shane takes great interest in. Unbeknownst to them, these Sunday fascist have answers to provide to our group of friends.
Nazis are silly
One thing that makes Tomahawk particularly shine is the relationship between the world of ideas and the physical world it traces. What the boys do (confront Nazis) is fucking noble in theory, but since they are not online and capable to reframe what happen to them, we’re privy to the real nature of their confrontation. Shane thought Nazis were silly, so he stole something from them. But he also brought it back, which somehow hilariously came off as disrespect.
Ideological confrontation is all over the internet and the inernet is all over our lives. It’s a form of intellectual entertainment for people who want to feel good about themselves, but don’t have the courage to stand up to real people. Lots of left wing people are like this, but lots of people pretending to be crazy, violent right wing people online are like this too. In Tomahawk, Charlie, Shane and our narrator become arbiters of ideological conflict despite themselves.
It makes for a pretty fucking funny confrontation between a faction that imposes an arbitrary meaning to historical facts (Nazis) and our boys who are just following the signs the universe sends them. Because if you willingly decide to care about something you have no agency over (like Nazis do), it gives other people a lot of power over you and Shane uses that power to blow open cosmic doors and help his friend unlock their true purpose in life. Spoiler: he’s successful.
Osborne used Nazis in Tomahawk because they’re dicks (I think), but it applies to anyone who’s too ideologically driven.
Friendship, meaning and other random things
Another great aspect of Tomahawk (which is present in every novel of the Black Gum cycle) is the multilayered meaning of the sketch-like scenes. For example, there is a en entire segment dedicated to the narrator and Shane going sober and working out together. They’re not exactly trying to clean up their act. Shane is trying to help the narrator enhance his mind-body connection that will come to play a crucial part in the second half of the novel.
Same goes for the scenes where Shane holds the frisbee like a weapon and screams “TOMAHAAAWK”. In the midst of tripping his life away, Shane reveals who he is: a trickster who’s going to use people’s self-seriousness against him. Some sort of trailer park Loki. In his hands, a game becomes a spiritual weapon against ideologically motivated enemies, like the the tomahawk was for native american warriors. There’s a literal, spiritual and symbolic meaning to everything.
Like, you know… in real life.
Ultimately, what makes the Black Gum cycle special is that it’s the story of three guys related by purpose and they don’t know what that purpose is from the get-go and they figure it out as they go along. The more attuned the narrator becomes to hard reality, the clearer it gets. Charlie, Shane and him are not united by common values or whatever fickle shit that can change. They have something to accomplish. I’m sure you’ve already felt a connection like this to someone.
I’ve thought about going decimal point for this review to show the nuances of my new scoring system, but who am I kidding? Books like Tomahawk are the very reason why I’m reading. I sift through dozens and dozens of books every year to find EXACTLY THIS. It might be your cup of tea. It might not. I might not have the same answer in 5 years, but right now, the magic and the unpredictability of the Black Gum cycle is all I’m asking. If this is your jam, you can buy it here.
10/10
