I went into this book knowing nothing about it other than having heard the title. But, damn, that title is great. I figured anyone who can write that hook couldn’t do too bad with a novel, but judging a book by its title is only marginally less idiotic than judging by its cover.
I was an English major so I don’t need every book to be literary popcorn, but at the risk of seeming like a dullard, I was bored to tears by this book. The writing was so flat that it seemed like magical realism minus the magic. I barely cared about any of the characters, there’s no plot to speak of, and there doesn’t seem to be much to say about life as a whole, no greater statement that the book is making. I kept finding myself re-reading passages because my attention would wander, and I’d realize my eyes were gliding along the words without absorbing them.
Ostensibly it is about a deaf mute and the town he moves to when his friend is sent to an asylum, but nothing really happens and to no greater end, so I’m at a loss to say anything more about the book, really.
It reminded me of southern gothic Hemingway; why is the heart a lonely hunter? So it can die. In the rain.
