The Red Arrow by William Brewer

 'A failed American novelist is on honeymoon in Italy, but the day of this story he's travelling from Rome to Modena by the 'frecciarossa' high-speed train (the 'red arrow' of the book's title). He's in the process of ghost-writing the life story of a famous physicist, but the physicist has disappeared - refusing to answer e-mails or phone calls. This has put our unnamed narrator in a fix, as finishing the memoir was the only way he could write off a huge advance from his publishers, but he's hoping to find the physicist at home on his family estate. 

While the train rushes through Italian countryside, the narrator's thoughts wonder back over his life - through years of depression and the life-altering psychedelic drug treatment which saved him. 

The Red Arrow is a difficult book to describe without giving a complete spoiler. The writing is straight forward, very American to my mind (though I'd be hard pressed to describe what exactly I mean by that), but the narrator's thoughts are circuitous, constantly circling round the big 'treatment' event without approaching it. Even so, I found it very readable. 

There's a huge amount of coincidence or interconnectedness to events and characters, and a resolution which resembles the 'which came first; the chicken or the egg?' conundrum. To be honest this seems only fair and fitting as I picked this read up from Netgalley solely on the basis that one of our local buses is named the Red Arrow. What I didn't expect was the brief appearance of my grandmother's next door neighbour, D H Lawrence, but that's coincidence for you.  

All in all, an intriguing book, and one I think I'll read again.