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The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg
“Believe the hype. I killed myself.”
Having destroyed his life, the suicidal T. Rimberg strikes out on a journey through history and geography. From Minneapolis to Europe to a fiery accident near Green Bay, he searches for a father who is likely dead, digs for meaning where he’s sure there is none, fires off suicide letters to family, celebrities, presidents, and football stars, and lands in a hospital bed across from a priest who believes that Rimberg has caused a miracle. This funny, moving novel asks us to consider the nature of second chances and the unexpected form that grace sometimes takes.
Having destroyed his life, the suicidal T. Rimberg strikes out on a journey through history and geography. From Minneapolis to Europe to a fiery accident near Green Bay, he searches for a father who is likely dead, digs for meaning where he’s sure there is none, fires off suicide letters to family, celebrities, presidents, and football stars, and lands in a hospital bed across from a priest who believes that Rimberg has caused a miracle. This funny, moving novel asks us to consider the nature of second chances and the unexpected form that grace sometimes takes.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
6 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Geoff Herbach
17 books226 followersI am the author of the YA title, Stupid Fast (June 2011 from Sourcebooks Fire). I also wrote The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg, a Novel from Three Rivers Press. When I'm not writing books, I'm writing for Radio Happy Hour or developing ridiculous musical bits.
When I'm not writing, I'm teaching writing at Minnesota State, Mankato, which means I write a lot of comments about writing on student writing.
Writing a lot of writing and reading about writing and writing on reading.
When I'm not writing, I'm teaching writing at Minnesota State, Mankato, which means I write a lot of comments about writing on student writing.
Writing a lot of writing and reading about writing and writing on reading.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
May 14, 2008
An absorbing read, bursting with insightful celebrations of human imperfection.
June 28, 2025
I’m still confused after finishing this book, I’m still questioning why the main character is having dreams of WWII when he was born in 1970? I’m questioning what the priest, Father Barry, has to do with anything in this book when it seems so clear that T is not very religious? I’m wondering what T was a perfect candidate for when Father Barry mentioned at the beginning of the book to the diocese?
Overall I liked the format of this book but it just left way too many questions.
Overall I liked the format of this book but it just left way too many questions.
December 30, 2020
A beautiful, wacky, dark, and gut-wrenching epic about Jewish identity and attempting to understand one’s parents.
April 4, 2022
I really got into this book in the beginning, enjoying the format of letters and interviews. However, I really felt like the meat of the book, the actual plot, left a bit to be desired. This is definitely a "guy book". Meh.
January 10, 2010
I picked this book up at the library without having heard anything about it beforehand. The blurb on the back was intriguing. I was a little concerned that it was going to turn into a Chicken Soup for the Soul type of "inspiring" tale, given the reference to (Christian?) grace on the cover, but I went at it with an open mind anyhow.
Maybe I should have heeded my intuition. I ended up skimming the second half of the book. I wasn't enjoying it very much. I did appreciate some things about it. It seems like a very creative and unusual tale in many ways and it has some laughable, clever moments. It's just not for me. That's okay. I'm probably not in the target audience.
It happens that I read The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg around the same time that I read Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. Both works make use of a Q&A format, with the questions left to the imagination of the reader. Both are about self-absorbed, pathetic people. But Wallace's story worked. It was enchanting and memorable. It plunged straight into the heart of ugliness, without reservations. Somehow, through the voices of those awful men, Wallace managed to point boldly at truths nobody ever seems to want to reference, to commiserate with us as we stare at the broken, ugly world all around and acknowledge that--yes--so much of it is incomprehensible and horror-filled. Wallace's aim was to reach out to us, to share with us, to trust us to be intelligent enough to get what we need from his work.
Herbach, on the other hand, appears to have a Point and Rimberg is a tool to illustrate this Point and if you are too dense to get the Point, don't worry--it is explicitly stated on the last page. It is very similar to Wallace's point, but for me it rings hollow and unconvincing.
The title character calls himself an "idiot, a narcissist, a navel gazer, and a philanderer." He is right. But he skips over this uncomfortable topic very quickly. His mystical experience and his brush with death have convinced him that he should be a Nice Person, that it's useless to hate himself or feel ashamed. But my impression is that Rimberg never was the type of person who really hated himself. He was the type of person who wants desperately not to be held responsible for his own actions and so criticizes himself preemptively. He maintained a facade of self-hatred for much of the book but never actually did the dirty work of sorting through the muck of his own motivations. He wants the prize to come easy; he wants to be delivered through physical heroism and/or by spiritual forces. (And, to be fair, maybe someone like Rimberg is too unaware and simple to attack the real problem head on. Maybe that's part of the point. I don't know.)
His final paragraph is a cop-out and vaguely-worded promise to be a better person, but it is presented as if it were a deep epiphany. Rimberg knows he has got to shape up and he brags that he will be a great dude full of love, but when I read between the lines I am convinced he's still a chicken. A false epiphany of this variety actually would be a fascinating way to end a book, because a great many real people have such experiences regularly, but the author clearly does not intend for it to be as shallow as it is. (The back blurb states that this book "asks us to consider the nature of second chances", so I'm pretty sure Rimberg's conversion was meant to be seen as touching and honest.) That, I think, is why and where the story fails (in my eyes).
Maybe I should have heeded my intuition. I ended up skimming the second half of the book. I wasn't enjoying it very much. I did appreciate some things about it. It seems like a very creative and unusual tale in many ways and it has some laughable, clever moments. It's just not for me. That's okay. I'm probably not in the target audience.
It happens that I read The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg around the same time that I read Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. Both works make use of a Q&A format, with the questions left to the imagination of the reader. Both are about self-absorbed, pathetic people. But Wallace's story worked. It was enchanting and memorable. It plunged straight into the heart of ugliness, without reservations. Somehow, through the voices of those awful men, Wallace managed to point boldly at truths nobody ever seems to want to reference, to commiserate with us as we stare at the broken, ugly world all around and acknowledge that--yes--so much of it is incomprehensible and horror-filled. Wallace's aim was to reach out to us, to share with us, to trust us to be intelligent enough to get what we need from his work.
Herbach, on the other hand, appears to have a Point and Rimberg is a tool to illustrate this Point and if you are too dense to get the Point, don't worry--it is explicitly stated on the last page. It is very similar to Wallace's point, but for me it rings hollow and unconvincing.
The title character calls himself an "idiot, a narcissist, a navel gazer, and a philanderer." He is right. But he skips over this uncomfortable topic very quickly. His mystical experience and his brush with death have convinced him that he should be a Nice Person, that it's useless to hate himself or feel ashamed. But my impression is that Rimberg never was the type of person who really hated himself. He was the type of person who wants desperately not to be held responsible for his own actions and so criticizes himself preemptively. He maintained a facade of self-hatred for much of the book but never actually did the dirty work of sorting through the muck of his own motivations. He wants the prize to come easy; he wants to be delivered through physical heroism and/or by spiritual forces. (And, to be fair, maybe someone like Rimberg is too unaware and simple to attack the real problem head on. Maybe that's part of the point. I don't know.)
His final paragraph is a cop-out and vaguely-worded promise to be a better person, but it is presented as if it were a deep epiphany. Rimberg knows he has got to shape up and he brags that he will be a great dude full of love, but when I read between the lines I am convinced he's still a chicken. A false epiphany of this variety actually would be a fascinating way to end a book, because a great many real people have such experiences regularly, but the author clearly does not intend for it to be as shallow as it is. (The back blurb states that this book "asks us to consider the nature of second chances", so I'm pretty sure Rimberg's conversion was meant to be seen as touching and honest.) That, I think, is why and where the story fails (in my eyes).
April 16, 2008
It perhaps goes without saying that when reading a novel entitled The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg, one has to take a fair amount on faith. Geoff Herbach’s debut is framed as a collection of interviews, letters, and journals documenting a year in the life of Theodore Rimberg, a newly divorced, alienated, and suicidal sonofabitch, whose involvement in an improbable accident in Green Bay, Wisconsin convinces a local priest that he may have been the driving force behind a verifiable miracle. That the circumstances leading up the ‘Miracle of I-43’—a meeting between ‘T.’ and a sympathetic youth named ‘Cranberry,’ a series of clairvoyant nightmares, a mysterious inheritance from his absent father, and a spontaneous pilgrimage through Europe—each move the plot forward with distinctly contrived ease is then somehow pardonable. This is fate, we’re dealing with, after all. The quarrels of skeptics would only be petty.
Herbach isn’t so much writing a story as investigating the context needed to create a good one. For while the eponymous ‘miracle’ is central to the plot, it isn’t fully revealed until the very last pages. All of the novel’s efforts are focused on the background, the question of ‘How.’ How one comes to be in the exact right place at the crowning moment of his destiny. How he came to be the person is he is in the first place. They’re sweet, if not terribly original fascinations, and ones which compel Herbach to continually expand his plot, summoning all manner of convoluted twists so that Rimberg might be able to accept his predestined role when the time comes.
Given the buildup, readers may find the spotlight event somewhat anti-climactic, but The Miracle Letters’ main misstep is its evident surprise that terribly flawed people are capable of great deeds. “I am a complete idiot, a narcissist, a navel gazer, and a philanderer,” Rimberg writes. “This is all real and right and I am not ashamed. Life is a complete disaster. It is horrible and ridiculous. I am so lucky to have this chance.” These are hardly miraculous revelations, but no less earnest for their attempt to find order in the muddle that can so easily be made of a life.
(Published in the 4/16 issue of The L Magazine.)
Herbach isn’t so much writing a story as investigating the context needed to create a good one. For while the eponymous ‘miracle’ is central to the plot, it isn’t fully revealed until the very last pages. All of the novel’s efforts are focused on the background, the question of ‘How.’ How one comes to be in the exact right place at the crowning moment of his destiny. How he came to be the person is he is in the first place. They’re sweet, if not terribly original fascinations, and ones which compel Herbach to continually expand his plot, summoning all manner of convoluted twists so that Rimberg might be able to accept his predestined role when the time comes.
Given the buildup, readers may find the spotlight event somewhat anti-climactic, but The Miracle Letters’ main misstep is its evident surprise that terribly flawed people are capable of great deeds. “I am a complete idiot, a narcissist, a navel gazer, and a philanderer,” Rimberg writes. “This is all real and right and I am not ashamed. Life is a complete disaster. It is horrible and ridiculous. I am so lucky to have this chance.” These are hardly miraculous revelations, but no less earnest for their attempt to find order in the muddle that can so easily be made of a life.
(Published in the 4/16 issue of The L Magazine.)
February 2, 2016
Sample passage (pp. 34-35):
“Dee Anne… You’re a good person, I guess… but is this what a decent life has to offer? Meatloaf dinners and fluorescent lighting? Is this really it?
What a [expletive] nightmare. Your poor kids. Your poor, poor kids.
Of course this is a suicide letter, Dee Anne. Of course it is. You kill me.”
Epistolatory novels must be challenging for author. There are awkward stretches where the author attempts to communicate key points that are illogical for the protagonists to write in a letter. So, I’ll admit I tend to be biased against this device; I even found Jane Austen’s first epistolatory novel “Lady Susan” disappointing (which is really saying something, since as a female former English major of a certain age, I am required by law to love all things Jane Austen.)
One of the themes of this novel is forgiveness, which is why I am coming clean about my biases and forgiving “The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg” for being flawed. The meandering, clunky, repetitious sections, and the holes in the plot – all of which seem to be endemic to the genre – are interspersed with some funny rants. The quest for identity of the central character kept me intrigued enough to read through to the end, in which the novel redeems itself by leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions from the story.
The best part of this novel remind me of Simon Armitage’s Poem “And if it snowed and snow covered the drive / he took a spade and tossed it to one side. / And always tucked his daughter up at night / And slippered her the one time that she lied. / And every week he tipped up half his wage. / And what he didn't spend each week he saved. / And praised his wife for every meal she made. / And once, for laughing, punched her in the face […] // Here's how they rated him when they looked back: / sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.”
“Dee Anne… You’re a good person, I guess… but is this what a decent life has to offer? Meatloaf dinners and fluorescent lighting? Is this really it?
What a [expletive] nightmare. Your poor kids. Your poor, poor kids.
Of course this is a suicide letter, Dee Anne. Of course it is. You kill me.”
Epistolatory novels must be challenging for author. There are awkward stretches where the author attempts to communicate key points that are illogical for the protagonists to write in a letter. So, I’ll admit I tend to be biased against this device; I even found Jane Austen’s first epistolatory novel “Lady Susan” disappointing (which is really saying something, since as a female former English major of a certain age, I am required by law to love all things Jane Austen.)
One of the themes of this novel is forgiveness, which is why I am coming clean about my biases and forgiving “The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg” for being flawed. The meandering, clunky, repetitious sections, and the holes in the plot – all of which seem to be endemic to the genre – are interspersed with some funny rants. The quest for identity of the central character kept me intrigued enough to read through to the end, in which the novel redeems itself by leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions from the story.
The best part of this novel remind me of Simon Armitage’s Poem “And if it snowed and snow covered the drive / he took a spade and tossed it to one side. / And always tucked his daughter up at night / And slippered her the one time that she lied. / And every week he tipped up half his wage. / And what he didn't spend each week he saved. / And praised his wife for every meal she made. / And once, for laughing, punched her in the face […] // Here's how they rated him when they looked back: / sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.”
June 26, 2012
I love the idea of the written format of this book. Mr. Herbach has completed a unique manuscript that I have never really seen anyone else make work. That idea, not to keep you too long in suspense,...well maybe a little longer...oh, ok...is that a novel can be completely written through letters, journal entries, and interviews. People have tried, so far, from my view, only Herbach has made it work. He somehow managed to maintain a balanced narrative structure throughout the novel. And this is how I think he did it.
The letter is gushing by nature, a one-sided emptying of feelings puked across the page. The interview is bland, a ritualistic tied to the chair, terrorist type torture. The journal entry conveniently, is ambivalent.
Yep. He combined all three, somehow combining an equal amount of angst, lust, love, and boredom. Awesome.
The story itself follows T. Rimberg in search of his father (aren't we all, somehow) around the world. Throughout the book he discovers the secrets, treasures, and horrors of his family with his fifteen year old sidekick/substitute son, Cranberry.
Along the way, he ties his roots back to the Mid west of Madison and Green Bay. He writes suicide letters to old girlfriends, coaches, people that beat him up, presidents, Madonna, and a host of other stars. Awesome! And something I think maybe everybody should start doing.
He somehow makes Brett Favre a character and I love him for that. But mostly he is true to himself and the imperfections of the world in a way that is believable and true. Good book.
Thanks to Cousin Jen for buying this for Christmas a few years ago. It took me awhile to get to it, but as you know I have lots of things on plates to eat.
The letter is gushing by nature, a one-sided emptying of feelings puked across the page. The interview is bland, a ritualistic tied to the chair, terrorist type torture. The journal entry conveniently, is ambivalent.
Yep. He combined all three, somehow combining an equal amount of angst, lust, love, and boredom. Awesome.
The story itself follows T. Rimberg in search of his father (aren't we all, somehow) around the world. Throughout the book he discovers the secrets, treasures, and horrors of his family with his fifteen year old sidekick/substitute son, Cranberry.
Along the way, he ties his roots back to the Mid west of Madison and Green Bay. He writes suicide letters to old girlfriends, coaches, people that beat him up, presidents, Madonna, and a host of other stars. Awesome! And something I think maybe everybody should start doing.
He somehow makes Brett Favre a character and I love him for that. But mostly he is true to himself and the imperfections of the world in a way that is believable and true. Good book.
Thanks to Cousin Jen for buying this for Christmas a few years ago. It took me awhile to get to it, but as you know I have lots of things on plates to eat.
November 28, 2008
T. Rimberg is ready to commit suicide. He was married. Had two kids. Cheated on wife. Divorced. What else can he do with his life...?
Until a package comes in the mail containing a lot of money from the father who left when he was still a kid. It's an inheritance...but all the notes are dated for the future. So is he dead? Alive? And where to go from here?
With Cranberry, a kid kicked out of his house, T. heads off to Europe. He keeps his intention to kill himself, but finds that having a purpose in your life often changes plans.
This book was told mostly through letters and journal entries, giving a unique take on an already unique story. T. Rimberg writes everyone from his brother to his dad to Aunt Jemima. Spread out between the letters is a conversation being held between T. and a priest who seems to believe T. created a miracle. The book, however, only gives you T.'s responses and nothing else.
The Miracle Letters had interested me for awhile and I was definitely excited to read the book, but I was quite surprised by all the historical elements in the novel, but it was a welcome surprise. Herbach writes about families being connected from far away and that life is never exactly what it seems to be at any given moment.
I recommend for older teens and adults.
Until a package comes in the mail containing a lot of money from the father who left when he was still a kid. It's an inheritance...but all the notes are dated for the future. So is he dead? Alive? And where to go from here?
With Cranberry, a kid kicked out of his house, T. heads off to Europe. He keeps his intention to kill himself, but finds that having a purpose in your life often changes plans.
This book was told mostly through letters and journal entries, giving a unique take on an already unique story. T. Rimberg writes everyone from his brother to his dad to Aunt Jemima. Spread out between the letters is a conversation being held between T. and a priest who seems to believe T. created a miracle. The book, however, only gives you T.'s responses and nothing else.
The Miracle Letters had interested me for awhile and I was definitely excited to read the book, but I was quite surprised by all the historical elements in the novel, but it was a welcome surprise. Herbach writes about families being connected from far away and that life is never exactly what it seems to be at any given moment.
I recommend for older teens and adults.
August 18, 2008
I should have known going into it what my reaction to this book would be, but there were so many positive reviews, many of them citing the laugh-out-loud funny stuff, that I had to give it a try. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, but I found nothing whatsoever to laugh at in this book. It was just sad to be inside the head of this seriously depressed man. And why oh why do "modernistic" novels like this one invariably end up dealing with the Holocaust???? I could have moved past all that, though, if I hadn't gotten completely hung up on the way the "transcript" sections were written - I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the author omitted the priest's side of the conversation. Was it supposed to add something to the story?? Didn't work for me. And the supposed "miracle"??? Oh, puhleeze. Thrown in as an afterthought, and not worth slogging through the whole rest of the book to get to. Oh, well, at least I finished it . . .
August 20, 2008
I picked up this book because of these lines on one of the first few pages in which the protagonist writes the first of many suicide letters:
"Dear Jesus,
I am drunk. I think I just got rich."
The book is compiled like a case file for Mr. Theodore Rimberg. It flits back and for from the many suicide letters T. Rimberg written in the year leading up to his "accident" and the transcripts between him and a priest while he is recovering in a hospital. The letters (some of which are written to Paul McCartney, Madonna, Aunt Jemima, President Clinton, as well as his family) are sometimes funny, sometimes sad and bewildering, but always poignant. You learn about T. Rimberg and his life while he is busy discovering himself as he reflects on his past and desperately tries to escape the future.
"Dear Jesus,
I am drunk. I think I just got rich."
The book is compiled like a case file for Mr. Theodore Rimberg. It flits back and for from the many suicide letters T. Rimberg written in the year leading up to his "accident" and the transcripts between him and a priest while he is recovering in a hospital. The letters (some of which are written to Paul McCartney, Madonna, Aunt Jemima, President Clinton, as well as his family) are sometimes funny, sometimes sad and bewildering, but always poignant. You learn about T. Rimberg and his life while he is busy discovering himself as he reflects on his past and desperately tries to escape the future.
July 7, 2015
This is another one of those books that sounded a lot better than it turned out to be. The plot reveals itself in a series of first person accounts gleaned from the lead character's journal, some transcripts from conversations with a priest, and from letters T. writes to anyone who catches his attention, from Anne Frank, to Uncle Charley from My Three Sons, to Brett Favre. Since T. is high through most of his writing, or mentally impaired in some other way, reading this is like being the only sober person in a room full of drunks. Or being straight while everyone else is high. It's amusing for them, and amusing for a little while, but eventually you just want them to either shut up or make some sense. In time, a plot, of sorts, does unravel itself, but i'm not sure it was worth the round about way we got there.
December 1, 2010
Dark Comedy- New genera for me.
It did make me laugh - mostly from who he wrote letters to "dear Mrs. Butterworth" etc.
- Through the duration of 90% of the book it was quick enough and slightly humorous enough to compel me to keep reading, but I felt no connection to the plot. As I read I wondered "what am I waiting for here, what are we trying to resolve or discover...?"
The ending is interesting, however had I known this would be the conclusion- it would not have been good enough for me to read the whole book. I was not upset by the ending just not thrilled.
Glad I read it- but I doubt I will read it again.
It did make me laugh - mostly from who he wrote letters to "dear Mrs. Butterworth" etc.
- Through the duration of 90% of the book it was quick enough and slightly humorous enough to compel me to keep reading, but I felt no connection to the plot. As I read I wondered "what am I waiting for here, what are we trying to resolve or discover...?"
The ending is interesting, however had I known this would be the conclusion- it would not have been good enough for me to read the whole book. I was not upset by the ending just not thrilled.
Glad I read it- but I doubt I will read it again.
January 8, 2015
I think it's safe to say I love this book. I picked up "The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg" after reading Geoff's YA novel Stupid Fast, which is a great read (and fills a huge void in teen literature for guys). Geoff has a unique and poignant way of telling a story, and his characters are real and emotional.
I laughed out loud at "The Miracle Letters" and contemplated life and felt sad and felt joy. I can see myself reading this book over and over; I'm placing this on my bookshelf next to Christopher Moore's "Lamb" and Markus Zusak's "I Am The Messenger."
I laughed out loud at "The Miracle Letters" and contemplated life and felt sad and felt joy. I can see myself reading this book over and over; I'm placing this on my bookshelf next to Christopher Moore's "Lamb" and Markus Zusak's "I Am The Messenger."
June 14, 2008
I read this book really quickly--it's got a different style (with letters mixed with interviews mixed with journal entries). I picked it up originally because I liked the color combos on the cover and the author is on NPR. I hung in to finish it because I wanted to know what the "accident" was, and in the end felt pretty satisfied. I'm not sure I would really deem it a "miracle," and kinda thought the priest was unnecessary. And I didn't laugh as much as I wanted to, but liked the development of T. Rimberg and some of his manic decisions.
July 27, 2009
There are passages in this book that are so funny, you will insist on reading them aloud to your family and friends, even though this annoys them. There are other passages that will haunt you for days, causing you to stare into space and look pensive. T. Rimberg is a lovable, disgusting headcase, and he makes an endearing protagonist and an entertaining narrator. As much as I enjoyed the process of reading this novel, though, when I finished it, I couldn't help feeling that the whole was oddly less than the sum of its parts. I'd prefer more letters and fewer mircales.
July 7, 2008
One of my smart students told me to read this at the end of the school year. I didn't like the text on the back and I wasn't sure about the first few pages, but then I was hooked very hard. It is an easy read and is amazingly funny. Actually coughed coffee on my copy of the book. I found it moved from very far out and wild to so touching at the end. I didn't have a great relationship with my father and maybe that is why the end got to me like it did. Good book.
December 13, 2008
If you loved Nicole Krauss' History of Love and Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I suspect you too will adore Geoff Herbach's Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg. The book has charm - all the more so for folks in their earlier thirties who'll get the protagonist's pop cultural references - and a whimsical approach to history and how it stalks some of us. Loved it, plain and simple.
April 9, 2010
This book made me happy. Sad and funny is a winning combination.
At first, I wasn't sure I'd like the construction (the story comes together through a series of letters T. Rimberg writes to people and a one-sided transcript of an interview he has with a priest) - sometimes things like that can end up feeling forced and gimmicky instead of natural. But it was artfully done and totally suspension-of-disbelievable. I couldn't put it down.
Good show, Mr. Herbach!
At first, I wasn't sure I'd like the construction (the story comes together through a series of letters T. Rimberg writes to people and a one-sided transcript of an interview he has with a priest) - sometimes things like that can end up feeling forced and gimmicky instead of natural. But it was artfully done and totally suspension-of-disbelievable. I couldn't put it down.
Good show, Mr. Herbach!
August 6, 2009
definitely interesting concept...just a little out there for my taste. i also thought that the "accident" that the book kept eluding to as its climax was pretty lame. it took way too long to get there and wasn't near as interesting as all the fanfare had me hoping for. thankfully, it was a quick read or i don't think i would have made it through.
October 17, 2008
Interesting, well written, funny, innovative, great cover, good characters. The ending? Could have been better. One of the better books I've read this year. Too lazy for a plot synopsis at the moment.
October 25, 2010
A surprising page-turner. Thoroughly depressing at times, but hey, that's postmodernism, right? Herbach had a way of weaving this story that kept me intrigued--and even rooting for the twisted protagonist.
June 13, 2012
This book was very funny, and I love it when authors write in simple language but manage to pack so many ideas and messages in. I just picked it up on a whim at the library and ended up really enjoying the story line and the main character.
April 22, 2008
Just about perfect. Captures the joy and misery of being human. I loved it.
April 22, 2008
If you like Geoff Herbach's caracter at the Arc radio show you have to read his book. I just started and like it so far.
May 6, 2008
Excellent on many levels...as a story about fear, father-son relationships, dealing with loss and finally grace. Wonderful...
May 12, 2008
This book was written by a grad of the Hamline MFA program and it is amazing. Funny, smart and haunting all at the same time. Herbach is a master at making the smallest detail seem oh so important.
June 27, 2008
Amusing epistles of going mad and coming back.
November 15, 2010
Thoroughly enjoyed this book! Very creative writing style and a great story.
February 9, 2011
So far i am really loving this book. I am so glad i decided to grab it off the shelf when i walked by. Really entertaining.
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