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Redux by Sean McKeithen is a series of 176 seemingly nonsensical prose chapters. Without a plot or coherent characters, the book does not develop a clear story from one end to the other. But certain words, phrase and subjects recur throughout in different contexts, slightly changed, with different meanings. A redux alternately appears to be a child, a philosophy, or a prize. The name of the author, or one of its many variations, turns up throughout the book attached to disparate characters. This makes the book's initial chapters forbidding. Characters are introduced and change names, or disappear altogether. The word "redux" is used frequently and without consistency. A patchy narrative seems to center around something like an academy, where a group of characters called "the cadets" play basketball and advance toward something, though it is unclear precisely what.
Its tendency to repeat itself and the difficulty it presents to someone attempting to read it, give Redux the feel of a book written by a computer program, rather than an author. Logically connective words and phrases like, "since," "once in a while," and "therefore," regularly join clauses that cannot reasonably go together. And, on the book's first page, there are grammatical errors that are easily noticed. But whether it is the output of a machine, of a man, or of some prolific collaboration between the two, Redux includes many touching moments, when a turn of phrase or a compelling juxtaposition create the sort of momentarily surreal beauty that can only otherwise be found in dream stories or Zen koans.