Clifford: A Memoir, A Fiction, A Fantasy, A Thought Experiment

by Harold R. Johnson

I open my eyes in the darkness, laying on my side, half my vision is of the earth and shadows; the other is of the sky, treetops, and stars. I should write Clifford’s story. The thought emerges fully formed . . . The thought dissipates. I close my eyes and the earth and the sky disappear. The warmth of my sleeping bag wraps around me and sleep pulls me under into that half-world where reality and fantasy mingle in a place where coherent thoughts disintegrate.



When Harold Johnson returns to his childhood home in a northern Saskatchewan Indigenous community for his brother Clifford’s funeral, the first thing his eyes fall on is a chair. It stands on three legs, the fourth broken off and missing. So begins a journey through the past, a retrieval of recollections that have too long sat dormant. Moving from the old family home to the log cabin, the garden, and finally settling deep in the forest surrounding the property, his mind circles back, shifting in time and space, weaving in and out of memories of his silent, powerful Swedish father; his formidable Cree mother, an expert trapper and a source of great strength; and his brother Clifford, a precocious young boy who is drawn to the mysterious workings of the universe.


As the night unfolds, memories of Clifford surface in Harold’s mind’s eye: teaching his younger brother how to tie his shoelaces; jousting on a bicycle without rubber wheels; building a motorcycle. Memory, fiction, and fantasy collide, and Clifford comes to life as the scientist he was meant to be, culminating in his discovery of the Grand Unified Theory.


Exquisitely crafted, funny, visionary, and wholly moving, Clifford is an extraordinary work for the way it defies strict category and embraces myriad forms of storytelling. To read it is to be immersed in a home, a family, a community, the wider world, the entire cosmos.

Genres: Indigenous, Canada, Book Club, Memoir, Nonfiction, Contemporary, Canadian Literature

ebook

Published August 28, 2018

About the author

Born and raised in Northern Saskatchewan, Harold Johnson has a Master of Law degree from Harvard University. He has served in the Canadian Navy, and worked in mining and logging. Johnson is the author of five novels and one work of non-fiction, which are largely set in northern Saskatchewan against a background of traditional Cree mythology. The Cast Stone (2011) won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction.

Johnson practiced law as a Crown Prosecutor in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, and balanced that with operating his family's traditional trap line using a dog team.

Johnson died in early February, 2022.

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I write Clifford, I write him as fiction, as a fantasy, as a thought experiment. I close my eyes and the earth and the sky disappear. The warmth of my sleeping bag wraps around me and sleep pulls me under, into that half-world where reality and fantasy mingle in a place where coherent thoughts disintegrate.

I like this idea of memoir as thought experiment, so while I could never be certain which events in Clifford were meant to be strictly true, Harold R. Johnson's mix of memory and fantasy works well to honour the legacy of a brother he lost too soon. Returning to his long-abandoned childhood home in a Northern Saskatchewan Indigenous community on the eve of his brother's funeral, Johnson spends the night in the hollow formed by the roots of a “grandmother” tree, watching the stars march across the sky and welcoming visions of Clifford and their time together. If we are all – people, the earth, the cosmos – nothing more than the story we agree upon, Johnson does his brother a real service by committing that personal story to the page; a lovely and fitting tribute. (Usual caveat: I am quoting from an Advanced Readers Copy and passages may not be in their final forms.)

Within this cosmos of siblings, of rivalries and affiliations, gravitational forces drew some home. They stayed for a while, then spun away with the momentum of their own adult lives. The younger ones orbited around Mom, and there were two planets, Clifford and I, that were caught in each other's magnetic field and we orbited around Dad.

For brief biographical information: The author, Ray, was the seventh of nine children, and older brother Clifford was the closest to him in age with a six year gap. Their father was a quiet Swedish immigrant who, at twenty-three years older than their mother, died of a heart attack when Ray was just six. Their mother was a strong-willed Cree woman who then provided for her young family by running a successful trapline (with the children's seasonal help) until Social Services stepped in and told her that they would take her kids away if she didn't relocate to a nearby village, enroll the kids in the school there year-round, and put herself on welfare. From their father, Ray and Clifford learned the point of math and letters; from their mother, they learned how to live on the land. With the mind of a self-trained philosopher-scientist, Clifford was always drawing his younger brother in with his experiments and inventions, and it was from Clifford that Ray learned the connections between story and reality.

As the author spends the night on the land of his childhood, vignettes of memory come to him randomly, organically filling in the story of his childhood and his relationship with Clifford. As a child, Clifford taught Ray how to mentally explore the cosmos (in a spaceship made of a giant soap bubble with an eagle feather in his hand), and as a teenager, Clifford guided him on psychedelic trips to explore the reality of matter at the quantum level. All of this subatomic-uncertainty principle-parallel truths philosophising is right in my wheelhouse of interest, and as the boys grow into men and have deeper and deeper philosophical conversations, Clifford – although self-taught – is portrayed as a man with a profoundly intuitive understanding of physics and its implications. Ideas like the constant state theory – that the universe is constantly expanding without getting any bigger – are explained perfectly:

So the earth is orbiting the sun, and the sun is part of a galaxy orbiting a black hole, and while that black hole at the galaxy's centre is eating the galaxy, at the same time it is causing a whirlpool in space, putting energy into it, creating more mass. The two forces balance each other out. The universe is being eaten by the void that surrounds it, which is stretching it in all directions and creating more mass. And the black holes in the centre of each of the billions of galaxies are creating whirlpool energies that turn into mass. The universe is in a constant state of being created and destroyed at the same time.

Clifford grows from MacGuyvering a motorcycle out of a washing machine engine as a kid to inventing a microwave engine rocket as an adult that he then worries will rip an earth-devouring void into space-time. Even so, the rest of Clifford's siblings (including the author) accuse him of under-achieving; treat him like a black sheep for trying to carve his own path instead of throwing himself into local back-breaking industries as the rest of them have. Clifford knows that everything – religion, science, capitalism, reality – are just stories we tell ourselves, and instead of it making him pessimistic or nihilistic, this knowledge makes him love humanity all the more:

You were born knowing that you were destined for greatness. Everyone is born with that same message written in their DNA. It's what kept the Indians walking on the Trail of Tears. It's what has kept us going despite everything. That kid you see on the television with the extended belly and the flies crawling all over him, and they're trying to get you to send money to save him – he has the same message. That's why he stays sitting up, why he doesn't just lie down and die. It's an irrational sense of purpose. Most people have it educated out of them, or, like the kid on television, blocked by trauma, but we all have it. We just have to learn to listen to it again.

I loved that when Clifford tells a Wesakicahk story around a campfire, it's about the trickster flying into space in a rocketship, trying to mend a hole at the end of the universe; loved this blend of the two sides of his heritage and how the author weds them together. The stories that come to Ray as he tries to sleep on the family land add up to a loving portrait of a man and a relationship, and in the end, this mix of fact and fantasy seems the perfect way to honour Clifford. It certainly makes for an interesting read.

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profoundly moving and inspiring masterpiece of memoir—which the author declares is fiction. It is a tale of childhood, of his older brother Clifford, and of his parents. His mother was Cree, and his father Swedish (possibly Sami).

The story opens with a visit to the abandoned home, still standing, sheltering a chair with three legs, which defies gravity.

Clifford is several years older than "Ray" and is a muse, a teacher, a prankster, a trusted big brother, and eventually an "entangled particle". Ray and Clifford have long conversations about science and the meaning and parsing of parallel truths. Clifford loves to speculate on matters of theoretical physics and was inclined to be scientist (the mention of "science fiction" on the back cover does a disservice to this book; the conversation are speculative, but that is the nature of theoretical physics).

The tone of his book is simple and yet complicated. The meaning of life is straightforward but twisty. The wonders of the stars are a reflection of our vision. Particles and waves; voids in space; bending time—esoteric theories intersect with vivid hallucinatory imagination.

The author says he was born because of Tolstoy. Many people do not know the Canadian connection to Leo Tolstoy. Once upon a time, there was a group of religious dissenters in Russia who did not respect secular authority and caused problems for the Tsar. Tolstoy raised funds and helped these people, the Doukhobors, relocate to Canada, where they continued to be pacifists and defy authority. During World War II, pacifists could join road building crews instead of enlisting in the military, and Johnson's father was assigned to oversee one of these groups. While on the job he met and married a Cree woman, and they had several children. That is why the author says he owes his existence to Leo Tolstoy.

This author died in February 2022 and I picked up this book to read as my own little grieving ceremony, a witnessing of his talent as a writer, and as a message to the stars: you are seen.

[Candice Cleniuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. The writing is simple yet effective. It reminds me a bit of Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse in that it seems like a perfectly normal story until you step down the "rabbit hole." I really enjoy stories that have a fantastical element, especially when you don't see them coming.

[Srmclean · Rating 5 out of 5]

107pages in: 'I should write Clifford's story. But how? What would the structure look like? As though you might be walking through a painting you once saw hanging in somebody's living room? Biography. Maybe. I have enough material.' (*yeah? Do you Mr. Harold R? Do you??)
-'He tilted his head slightly over to one side and said carefully, "I think I might have accidently brought about the end of humanity" "Well, that's good. Whew! I thought you needed money or you'd gotten someone pregnant." (*please. Don't make me laugh. See also: ashley smashley kills it again).
-"If all matter used to be energy, there's too much matter in the universe. There couldn't be that much original energy. So what I think is going on is those entangled particles are actually the same particle in two places at the same time." "Whow, whoa," I interrupt. I ease off the gas pedal. I can't drive fast and think all this through at the same time.' [*like fellow reviewer(and friend☺)Candice mentioned, there's some "rabbit hole"-like moments debating/ranting about physics/chemistry that COULD be Duke and Dr.Gonzo in 'Fear and Loathing in Regina']
-'Another memory in the jumble: we were in front of the TV, in someone's house, they were watching the moon landings and debating whether it was a hoax. "There's no way to tell from the images," a know-it-all proclaimed, a young man with an attitude who took a counter position to whatever direction the conversation threaded, "we've never been to the moon before, so no one knows what it really looks like. It would be a simple matter to set up a hollywood production." "Ray knows what it looks like." Clifford started to laugh. "Tell them. Is that what the moon looks like?" "What's that?" someone asked. "Oh, he's been there. He knows what the moon looks like. Just ask him, he can tell you." But by that point he's laughing too hard for anyone to take him seriously.'
-'"What are you reading?" Clifford reached over and flipped up the cover of the book in my hands. 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'. "You be careful with that." Why should I be careful with it? It was from his bookshelf. The morning of reading was over. Now for conversation.'
-'I am okay. I might not be healed, but I have felt the beginning of healing' (*part-timin'll do that😉)

[Karan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was it a coincidence that I bought this book at the same time as I bought Halldor Laxness's Under the Glacier? Although Clifford is a memoir (or "a memoir, a fiction, a fantasy, a thought experiment"), through the recounting of conversations with his brother, Johnson also discusses time, space, voids and black holes, religion and philosophy, during the night following his brother's funeral. There is also history, geography, indigenous ways of life, family dynamics, the everyday. The same sort of range and mash-up as encountered in Laxness's Under the Glacier, though more accessible to me.

[Katherine Krige · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Harold Johnson's brother dies unexpectedly, he is faced with a lifetime of questions, memories, and guilt. This book weaves together a look at relationships under the guise of memoir, but with a big enough dose of fantasy thrown in to make you question what you really know about your own personal relationships. While the quantum theory challenged me, I loved Johnson's voice throughout.

[Christian Dannecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've found a new favourite author.

[Barbara McEwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5? I enjoyed the reminiscing and Canadiana but it went a bit too philosophical for me.

[Anne Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clifford by Harold R. Johnson has sat on my bookshelf for far too long. It wasn’t until I saw Johnson speak at Wordfest this past fall that I realized what I was missing out on, so I finally picked it up and gave it a go. At only 260 pages of very large font, I blasted through it, despite the fact that much of it devolves into confusing discussions around astrophysics and black holes (a subject I’m not so confidant in). What makes this book even less user-friendly is that these scientific discussions aren’t necessarily based in truth, as we are led to understand that the speakers don’t have an education in that field, and in many cases they are simply getting high on drugs and discussing things beyond them-physically and mentally. Although I’m still not sure what the POINT to all of that was, I did enjoy my experience of reading the book, and would happily recommend it to others who are also up for the challenge.

I’m surprised I liked this book in the end, mainly because I felt unmoored throughout most of my reading of it. Perhaps I was prepared for this disocomfort by the blurb from the publisher describing it as “A Memoir, A Fiction, A Fantasy, A Thought Experiment”. I don’t like fantasy, I prefer books to be firmly rooted in my reality so I can better grasp what’s going on, but Johnson roots us in something else; nature. The book begins with him visiting the dilapidated shell of his childhood home in Northern Saskatchewan, lost in the memories of everything that happened there. He’s come home for the funeral of his brother Clifford. As he reminisces about things both joyful and troublesome, day turns into night and he camps out in the open, building himself a fire to cook by before turning in for a restless night of sleep.

As an author, Johnson must have sensed that bringing readers back to this special place underneath the stars was a logical way to let us ‘rest’ in between memories. While he struggles with his guilt around his relationship with his late brother Clifford, we the reader struggle to make sense of Harold and Clifford’s existential discussions, and of all the things to remember about a sibling gone too soon, it’s strange these particular conversations dominate the narrative. I must confess we never get a true answer as to why this is, as Johnson slides major, perspective-changing events into the book, quickly glossing over these dramatic happenings to return back to the ongoing debates he held with his brother. Is this simply a typical case of a male avoiding emotion and favouring ‘safer’ topics? Or is the avoidance of these difficult memories suggesting something more important? Perhaps we are focusing on all the wrong things?

My favourite part of the book is towards the beginning when Johnson remembers his earliest memories, many of them dotted with his brother’s games, and his father’s teachings. In response to one of Clifford’s diatribes, their father says the following: “That’s a very interesting idea you have. But have you thought about how you’re going to use that idea to make things better?” (p. 51 of ARC). Aside from the fact that this is thought-provoking statement with ALL KINDS OF RELEVANCE, the gravitas of these words reminded me of a few months earlier when I saw Harold speak, and it seemed like everything he said was a measured, thoughtful response to what was going on around him. He didn’t say much, but what he did say was dignified and receptive, just like his father. Unfortunately Johnson doesn’t get to know his father well because he dies when he’s still young, but the small glimpses we get of him are so clearly meaningful, for both the reader and his kids.

Needless to say this book isn’t for everyone. I must confess I was bogged down by the ongoing discussions between Clifford and Harold, yet I’m so glad I pushed through because Johnson’s words and recollections are worth reading and committing to memory. Knowing where he came from and the difficult circumstances he surpassed to reach his current position as Crown Prosecutor and graduate of Harvard Law School, his trajectory may sound unbelievable, but the free thinkers he was blessed to be surrounded by are a great testament to the power and importance of family.

To read the rest of my reviews please visit my blog
https://ivereadthis.com/

or follow me on twitter:
https://twitter.com/ivereadthisblog

[MargaretDH · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. And I was definitely pleasantly surprised!

As the author says right in the title, this book is a memoir, but also a fantasy, fiction and thought experiment. I really liked this memorial to a lost sibling. I think we all have people in our lives who feel bigger than just facts, or whose story can't be told straightforwardly. Plus, the experimental and fantastical physics discussions took me places I wasn't expecting to go.

[Arthi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Each word is a story. It is either a placebo or a nocebo story. So we have to be careful with each word that we speak, because, depending on which word we choose, we can either heal or kill."

Clifford was a very unique memoir in that we don't fully know how much of the story came from memory and how much of it was fictionalized. However, based on the character Clifford displayed, that seems right in tune with who he was. Clifford was Harold's older brother. He was philosopher, a brother, a father and a son. Most of the book is comprised of theories Clifford introduced to his younger brother, often about physics, sometimes about society. As someone who hasn't taken a physics course since grade 12, it was hard to determine how well researched Clifford's ramblings were. Sometimes he seemed wise beyond his years, sometimes he seemed to be messing with his little brother and sometimes he seemed genuinely delusional.

The memoir/fiction/fantasy/thought experiment gave us a very initmate view on Clifford and Harold's relationship, and in turn an intimate view of some of the issues faced by Indigenous Canadians. Though only half-Indigenous, the Johnsons faced challenges like paternalistic social workers trying to bleach their way of life, to superstitious parents and physical abuse. Though I read this as an Indigenous Awareness requirement for work, it's important not to make any overarching conclusions about the Indigenous struggle, given that this is one man's personal experience and while that gives us a great amount of insight, no one person can speak for many.

I did find the book a bit dull when Clifford was delivering one of his physics lectures, mainly because I did not know how much of it was true. Even if Clifford was a well educated physicist, I don't know if Harold was and how many details may have been lost in translation. I'm not a fan of psuedoscience and so I had to read all of those sections with a grain of salt. I also had to wonder whether Clifford had an undiagnosed mental illness that led him to believe in all of his theories.

I did, however appreciate his insight on intrinsic racism and sexism. One quote that stuck with me was, "The problem with the money fiction is at a higher level: the economy. We used to believe in dragons and unicorns; now we believe in market forces. This new story demands human sacrifice. There are people on this planet who are starving to death and we have way too much food here...But if we took some of our food and gave it to them, our economy would suffer. So, to keep the economy story going, some people have to die." Clifford clearly thinks about issues at a much deeper level than the average person, and while he can come off as aloof and condescending sometimes, I do appreciate his thoughts.

One other scene that stuck with me was when Harold was talking about how Paulie irritates him, even when he's doing nothing wrong "I don't know why I'm so pissed at him all the time. He tries to be a good guy around me, always tries to lend a hand. I know if I ask him, he'll rush right over and help me out with whateverI need help with. But it's like I'm permanently upset with him, and it's not his fault., to which Harold suggests: "Maybe you did something to him that you can't forgive yourself for." The conversation takes a turn to the relationship between Harold and Clifford, but this concept really resonated with me. I know people have a tendency to hate those who remind them of themselves but this was a darker version of that and I found myself very eager to know what Harold had done to Paulie.

Overall, this was a very thoughtful memoir/fiction/fantasy/thought experiment. I liked the way we flip flopped between Harold mourning in the present and reminiscing about the past and it left me with a lot to think about. The book was also pretty emotional. Even though you knew that Clifford was dead from the beginning, the scene where Harold finds out still hits hard and helps you develop a lot of empathy for him and anger at the way the RCMP delivered (or rather, didn't deliver) the news.

[Melanie W · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much about this book I loved but then so much of it disappointed me. Some parts were just a bit boring and it was the parts about his brother’s explanations about things that seemed to go on too much. I get that this has relevance in other ways but felt the length descriptions about the universe parts could have been better condensed so that I could stay more engrossed in them. In fairness, it could also be that I was just tired when reading some parts as I read it at the end of the night.

[Dara · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you first start reading it you believe this book is about Clifford, his brother, the big idea man and his childhood - and young adulthood - mentor and tormentor. But you realize partway in that this is a memoir and a biography and a story of the universe and the story of a family.
There's no delineating fact from fiction in this story, much like life itself and the nature of memory and dreams. But if you allow yourself to slip into it and ride the current of the story without fixating on the accuracy you get a glimpse of a certain kind of truth - one that speaks both of how laying on the earth makes you feel a part of it and how looking at the stars makes you feel insignificant.
There's a childhood and an adulthood presented here that are very real, very stark, very grim at times. But also very beautiful.

From the details of an impoverished mother fighting to provide the best life for her children, to the sibling rivalry and competition for a parents' attention, to the depiction of growing up Native in Canada, there's something here for the memoir readers and historians. But there's also something here for the dreamers, the theorists, and the science fiction reader, as Johnson gives his brother the life he wishes he'd had - and possibly destroys the universe as a result.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this read for many reasons, mainly because it reflects many genres. The memoir aspect of it is very moving - the love of a younger brother for his older brother. I enjoyed the angle of the impressionistic younger brother, Harold, taking in whatever Clifford threw at him in his youth moving into the questioning by Harold of Clifford as they matured. I also love how this book honours Clifford.

I found the astrophysics and quantum physics discussions in the book very interesting and thought-provoking, mainly because they are presented as alternatives/extensions to scientific-based theories - very creative! Very cool way to take we the readers into Clifford's head as well as Harold Johnson's head.

I so loved the emotional journey we are taken on through memory of childhood within the context of extremely detailed and raw nature - in slow motion - as we journey with Harold in his honouring of his dead brother. Just felt so bare told in the way a mind works with memories so layered.

Great stories about childhood and adulthood exploits and adventures.

I appreciated that the book starts following the funeral and honouring of Clifford's life and over the course of the book we learn what he was like and closer to the end how and why he died.

Really well told.

[Candice Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you House of Anansi for the copy of this beautiful read - all opinions are my own.

This was a book that felt very near to my heart, as the community where Harold is from is in my neighboring province. Everything about this book felt like a warm afternoon of storytelling in the home of a dear friend.

Harold has a wonderful way of weaving story - I loved that there was perhaps no clear way to identify which pieces were memoir, fiction or fantasy, but overall that uncertainty lent itself well to the story. I settled in for an afternoon of reading with this book, and a cup of tea, and spent the entire afternoon glued to the pages.

The reflections of his life and how it was shaped by his brother were poignant and loving and I was drawn into the center of them as if I too had lived them. It was a wonderfully enjoyable way to waste away an afternoon, and a book that will stay with me for many years to come.

[Jane Mulkewich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I already love this author's non-fiction work (e.g. Peace and Good Order, Firewater), and will now start reading his fiction. I absolutely loved this memoir about his brother Clifford. He subtitles it as a fiction, a fantasy, a thought experiment... but really Clifford's stories are the most amazing plain-language rendition of astro-physics I have ever read (although some readers think those bits are boring - then this book might not be for you). I love the way that Clifford talked about the power of story, and that all of science is story, and all of everything is story. I feel the author's grief, and the tragic loss of this magical brother named Clifford. I love this book and I would have loved to have met Clifford. I would love to meet this author one day too!

[Arlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this - thoughtful, interesting, at times painful. Possibly I enjoyed this even more because of all the juvenile fiction I've been reading. It was refreshing to read something for an older audience.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I love how it intertwines science with the art of storytelling. A must read for anyone interested in science.

[Kenny Creeper · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible memorial to his brother, Clifford draws you into the relationship between two brothers.

[Barb Canal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our Book Club Read. I just don't know. Not good, not bad. Sometimes a little "out there". Sometimes to much to get the mind around. I guess i will say"different"

[Sarah Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't honestly prepared for this book.
The writing is beautiful, hovering between poetry, prose, physics treatise, philosophy treatise, and memoir. You really feel like you've been on a road trip through genres with this one. But the thing that holds it all together is the truth and sadness and love that is tightly laced through the work.
The story is unique but also heartbreakingly familiar. I've never met Clifford and Ray, or honestly even known anyone that seemed too similar to them, but at the same time my whole life has been spent wondering those same questions that Clifford answers, and looking at those same stars and pine needles that Ray sees, and feeling mystified and confounded at my own need for my own brother's love...Ray and Clifford are two very complicated, very smart, very loving, very angry, very successful, very depressed men. In that way, they are sort of like everyone.
Furthermore, there's no break from reality in this book. A lot of what Clifford explores with Ray are questions of racism, colonialism, the value of life, human and non-human, the genocide of Indigenous People, human purpose, and uncompromising morality. Their truths are true, and their revelations are just as uncomfortable as any true revelations in this mixed-up world we live in.
Finally, it is a love story with a heartbreak and redemption, and who doesn't love that?

[Lucien Welsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read the review and more at lucieninthestars.ca

The narration that Johnson provides is like having coffee with a dear friend after a tragedy. The dear friend in question being the kind of person who will respond with “I’m not ready to talk about it” or something similar when prompted about the tragedy, but is content to talk about it at their own pace. Having recently lost a family member myself, I found that tone to be very comforting and it was quite honesty a book that just felt safe – for lack of a better word.

I will definitely be keeping my eyes open for more of Johnson’s work, regardless of it being fiction or non-fiction. He has an incredible writing voice and that alone makes this a novel worth checking out.

[Shelley Âû · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. The characters are well written I highly recommend this book.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible read, funny, erudite, I loved it.