Not one of Morrison's strongest headtrips, but I still loved being slowly immersed into the world he built around the character of Kid Eternity. I'd never heard of Kid Eternity before, and having read this without doing any research about the character, I had no trouble keeping up with the spiraling, insane hellscape Morrison constructs here.
I think what I most appreciated about this book is that it's a somewhat-rare instance of Morrison truly earning the chaos he puts forth. This is a book that harnesses the flashes that come in the last moments of life, spitting out seemingly disconnected, random scenes that gradually gel to form a character's memories and, eventually, a complete story. It's genuinely satisfying to start figuring out the narrative as you move forward, and realize that Morrison isn't just wasting your time with weirdo Lynchian freakouts. All of this stuff matters this time.
Additionally, once the story starts to enter the realms of Hell and the dead, it has an equally earned weirdness and art style that compliment its tale of people existing somewhere between life and death, sanity and insanity. Fegredo's harsh, horrifying art style goes a long way to enhance this experience, leaving you feeling just as disoriented and overwhelmed as the main character. This is an important distinction within Morrison's work: sometimes his characters fully understand everything that's going on, leaving the reader feeling like a confused idiot for not also "getting it." But this time, we're along for the ride, and the fact that Hell is an indescribable nightmare is, obviously, fitting.
The only real negative about this book are its instances of exposition. It's strange to read such a trippy, abstract, nontraditional narrative, the story to revealing itself to you in fragments, and then suddenly stop dead to have a character explain in detail who he is and what he's doing. It happens on two occasions in the book, one of them being basically a character explaining the ending to you. I didn't love having my hand held for the final ten steps of a thousand mile journey, but I guess Morrison and/or Vertigo felt the need to guide us over the finish line. Oh well.
In any case, this is a great example of Morrison's style, and ever-so-slightly more accessible than his usual fare. It's also short and to the point, leaving no time for meandering detours or wasted scenes. I recommend it!