RaveThe IndependentVollmann's greatest accomplishment is to capture the overwhelming nature of violence and sex through seemingly outré detail. In previous books this has often involved personal revelation, but here his authorial intrusions are few. He seems most concerned with people ‘consumed with fear and regret’ who do what they can to ‘uphold the good’, which here is described as ‘freedom of artistic creation’ and ‘the mitigation of other people's emergencies’.
