PositiveThe Star TribuneThroughout this visceral book, Erin is frank about her father’s struggles with addiction, as well as her own ... Growing up during her father’s drugs-to-fame story is no fairy tale, and it’s clear she feels pressure to continue the ascent. Erin does an excellent job of bringing her famed father to warts-and-all life. Her telling rings true to the many Minnesotans who knew David, who was born and raised in the Twin Cities and worked at the now defunct Twin Cities Reader before editing the Washington City Paper and then landing a job at the New York Times.
Graeme MaCrae Burnet
MixedThe Minneapolis Star Tribune...[a] gripping, unnerving novel ... The novel — which also includes statements given to police, medical reports and trial transcripts — is so believable that it reads like a historical account, not fiction. The footnoted preface from the author, Graeme Macrae Burnet, claiming he ran across this bloody story while researching the life of his grandfather, serves to argue for the book's authenticity. But it's not fact, it's fiction — riveting, sometimes even grotesque, fiction. So the book's lackluster conclusion seems all the more disappointing. In the end, Roddy remains a mystery, his motivations and mental health uncertain.
Francine Prose
RaveThe Minneapolis Star Tribune...[a] beautifully crafted, incisively written novel ... The premise is fun, the cast of characters interesting enough, but what elevates the novel is Prose’s ability to let us see into the heart of each character, to render each so vulnerably human, so achingly real in just a few short paragraphs ... the book is laced with a sense of impending loss countered by the hope that we can find love — real, reciprocated, enduring love — in this life.
Marisa Silver
RaveThe Minneapolis Star Tribune... [a] clever, captivating book ... Silver unleashes her considerable imagination on a cast of colorful and endearingly flawed characters who are forced to fight against their stunted fates. The result is a beautifully told, heart-rending, can’t-put-it-down read ... Silver masterfully balances a riveting plot with deep meaning.
