Ryckman’s thickly lyrical language declines to commit to being either poetry or prose ... Ryckman’s use of plural pronouns is distinctive ... a meditation on social performance and the impossibility of presenting yourself in a singular role...This tactic of her survival unwittingly offers a way forward in a chaotic world.
Ryckman writes with cool, tightly packed precision on the futile ways people try to fill the emptiness and absence of life with objects and religion and desperate acts. Her rendering of the dynamics of an affair, which is so often an attempt to escape oneself, is especially keen ... A hypnotizing, bleak account of the ways people trap themselves in their own minds.
... seductive ... Vivid phrases and short, sharp chapters—sometimes as little as a single sentence or paragraph—keep up the momentum, while an unusual use of first-person plural narration keeps the reader on their toes, even if the prose’s rhythm and inventiveness can feel precious. Still, readers of lyrical, genre-bending fiction will be spellbound.
