Andrew Kaufman’s metaphoric mystery, The Ticking Heart, twists the heartstrings of the protagonist, Charlie Waterfield, like a crazed puppeteer looking to rip out every shred of hope in his lifeless doll. In an absurd reality, the hero enters the city of Metaphoria where his heart is cut out and replaced with a time-bomb set to go in twenty-four hours. In order to stop this bomb and save his soul, he experiences a riveting journey to find the heart of Twiggy, a man with a secret plan up his wooden sleeves. Waterfield also needs to find an answer to the question: what’s the purpose of the human heart? In the land of Metaphoria, this results in a series of locations and people that visualize different answers and different points of view to this theme. Our hero undertakes a series of detective work that weaves around this question by overcoming obstacles in his quest. The jealous Cyclops husband and the Unnamed Ghost provide enough roundabout comedy to keep me thinking Waterfield will never find his heart. Nothing in Metaphoria seems to help. And it makes his journey that much more interesting. He fights through all this nonsense with extreme patience finding everyone’s answers to this question, except his own. Makes me wish he fulfills his quest or at least dies already.

 Through the imagery and atmosphere, Kaufman brings a writing style that encapsulates the reader right from the get-go. The opening chapters dive into the universe of Metaphoria as a lawless yet orderly city. Filled with places like The Prison of Optional Incarcerations Necessary to Terminate and Lower Excessive Shame and Self-Reproach, a prison with no guards where individuals stare at the ground waiting for an epiphany to hit them. Or The Library of Blank Pages, which contains millions of books with nothing but a simple phrase on every page. Every location pushes Waterfield seconds closer to his goal, or his demise. These places show the many perspectives Kaufman brings to this simple question. We find a bit of ourselves, and other people, in how these characters situate themselves in this surreally, real city. Whether its fighting zombies or being thrown by perilous wind-streams, these characters find answers in the unlikeliest of places through the unlikeliest of actions. Waterfield reflects the human intuition to find order in the absurd. Kaufman plays on this by instituting chaos where we least expect it. Order comes from the ridiculous logic weaved through each sentence, each description, that constitutes Metaphoria.

The surreal metaphors ask what it means to let go of love, and how to rise from trauma. Kaufman forms questions in the beginning of the novel that find their answer throughout the text. Characters all fall out of a love that ruptures their being. Their minds are filled with inexplicable hope and trauma that drag them through the strangest methods to obtain closure. The Ticking Heart is a representation of how humans love, and how that love distorts people’s mindsets. Kaufman tells us to let go of the things that hold us back through the characters, events and places Waterfield investigates in his detective-work. Metaphoria is a realm where every inhabitant finds their lost piece of soul. The absurdness forces them to release the pain they carried so long in their hearts. By the time closure comes, we revel in the accomplishment while wishing Waterfield finds his already. 

The protagonist, though a divorcee and hopeless romantic, is the perfect character to have ramble through a mystery on a time-limit. Waterfield reaches every chapter with new insight into the world of Metaphoria and his own inner development. He careens into unreality with a purpose to fix his world, and though he is unwilling, he helps other characters find their epiphanies. Kaufman’s protagonist is a figure who relinquishes his life in any effort to help others escape their personal heartache. The irony is expected, and it is fantastic, as Waterfield inches closer to finding strength. The side characters of the Cyclops, Twiggy and the Unnamed Ghost, help touch this average-Joe in his heart. Reconciliation is a recurring dilemma that Waterfield finds himself in on multiple occasions. He is an every-day hero looking for closure, like so many people around him. In attempting to save his life, Waterfield brings the reader a form of love we can never do without. Harmony is found in the ridiculous.