I had Patrick DeWitt’s short novel, Ablutions, with me while I was in the hospital, but I learned very quickly that I am incapable of reading while taking uber-strong pain medication. I’ve been backing off the pain pills (I still need them occasionally and especially at night) and last night I gobbled up this book.

I chose to read Ablutions on the strength of DeWitt’s brilliant The Sisters Brothers. Ablutions, his first novel, is written in a format of notes for a novel written by a central character, a barman, who works in a seedy Hollywood bar. He befriends the various characters, most in various states of alcohol and drug-induced decline. Along the way, the barman experiences his own descent into the world he is observing.

It’s a dark book, a bleak book. Beyond the barman, the characters are treated in a sketchy way and so some of them seem clichéd. The drunken underbelly of urban California has been well-explored by others from Charles Bukowski to Tom Waits. DeWitt does Ok in this crowded space and the short novel format is deftly handled. There are no surprises, but I still found the big slide downhill to be strangely compelling. It isn’t for the squeamish and it isn’t pretty. Still, Ablutions is a pretty good first novel, and even if it is not in the same league as The Sisters Brothers, it’s worth the read.