Bill Silva > Recent Status Updates

“Howie’s troubles were a favorite family topic, and behind the shaking heads and oh it’s so sads you could hear the joy pushing right up through because doesn’t every family like having one person who’s fucked up so fantastically that everyone else feels like a model citizen next to him?”

Um…probably the wrong choice for reading over the holidays…it already promises to be a total downer (but who doesn’t love a sad book).

This was a disappointment. O’Nan is a great writer, but his descriptive skills fail him here—we learn more about driving the roads of coastal Rhode Island than about the motivations and interior lives of his characters. Since we know most of the story from the beginning, I was hoping for more complexity and imagination…but the novel follows a rather predictable path, and the ending is flat. Very unsatisfying.

I’m just halfway through…what an emotional roller coaster of a novel. I can’t put it down, even though it is one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. But also absolutely brilliant.