Shawn > Recent Status Updates

I'm reading in small sips. It is a painful tale that keeps drawing me in. It's one of those books that's difficult to summarize and fairly describe. "Gritty" is the best word to describe both Cass and his gloomy Great Depression conditions--maybe it's classified as Dirty Realism in its best form. It is convincing and dark.

Repugnant men. An awful tragedy of human misery. And yet, humor, and characters who feel true, and who are trying to find a way to survive in this brutal and racist and wretched land.

This is multi-layered so far. I am taken in by the story and I feel like I am reading a book that is asking me to think more deeply about my own nature in the world of human atrocities. Matthiessen's writing is sharp; his language is as poetic as it is precise.

165