RaveThe Houston ChronicleFinch is wrong about a great deal in this novel, and his opinions of many of the characters do change before we reach the end, but he is almost never wrong about what a certain attitude toward a certain text signifies ... Following such a relentlessly self-critical consciousness so closely through so much is often tedious. Many readers will not find the payoff sufficient for the effort that is required at several points in the book to go on to the next page ... I know of few other books that so powerfully convey the uneasy connection between intimacy and absurdity, the way that the minutiae of everyday domestic life can become so loaded with meaning in our most treasured relationships while to any outside observer they are ridiculously trivial.
