Gene Wolfe was, until he had the poor taste to die in 2019, the greatest living writer. I don't mean the greatest fantasy/SF writer; I also don't mean the greatest American writer. I mean the best. Period. This is one of his earlier novels; some would say less polished, others would say less obdurately involute. It's about a particular kind of down-and-out who thinks he's cleverer than regular folks yet can't consistently afford breakfast; it's about '70s-'80s Chicago; it's about a hope that refuses to be contained. First and foremost, it's about four people who answer a newspaper ad offering rent-free living.
Ben Free, the old man enabling this, wants these people's help because the county plans to knock his house down to build a highway overpass. The place is a dump, but it doesn't matter: to him because it's his home, to them because it's free. So far, so Blues Brothers; but then he starts talking vaguely about a treasure he's hidden... To one of his houseguests, he says it's a ticket back to the High Country whence he came; to another, he says it's a gizmo, about so big. Again, he tells someone that the treasure is hidden by a sign, and the tenant will know it when he sees it; this person assumes at the time that Free means a billboard... Then the old man vanishes, seemingly into thin air. His erstwhile tenants resolve to find him, and ideally his treasure.
This is a book with some notable longueurs; at one point it seems to become distracted entirely from its own plot. All the same, I love it. It is a strange and happy work.
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