PositiveDallas NewsWill Chancellor’s debut novel is a wild ride ... Although Owen’s adventures in Berlin, Amsterdam and Iceland are so zany they’re nearly fabulist, the settings are credible and fascinating ... The journey is so fast-paced and suspenseful that lapses into implausibility didn’t matter to me most of the time. And even the passages that stretched my believability were so entertaining I had no choice but to turn the page. It helps that Chancellor has a highly original voice, and his use of language can be quite beautiful ... I did find it difficult to get through some of the dense early passages that dealt purely with scholarship ... I concede...that without these passages, it would be impossible to see how one can become so deeply mired in the life of the mind that he forsakes the life of the heart ... But sometimes these sections felt exclusionary rather than inviting, and occasionally they struck a gratuitous tone. I found myself getting impatient and alternately wanting to skip pages or close the book ...
Ultimately I was rewarded for my patience, and I found the end of the book poignant, charming and just as eccentric as the rest of the story.
