... a deeply satisfying and mysteriously tear-inducing story to those willing to follow this sometimes confounding journey ... It can be frustrating at times, feeling always in the dark, but the interactions nevertheless keep propelling us forward ... [has] a dreamlike quality, as we stumble around in scenes that alternate between fantastical and achingly, if absurdly, real ... In its opaquest moments, the novel serves ingeniously as a Rorschach test for our own perceptions and concerns, leading us to look for the answers and logic we want and maybe even find them — until the next scene upends our previous analysis, the blots all changing shape. It takes a certain kind of reader to go for this book, but anyone enjoying the experimental, the strange and the dreamy — not to mention Tifft’s exquisitely specific and strange descriptions — will surely find much pleasure in From Hell to Breakfast.
Fans of magical realism and unreliable narrators might enjoy this sophomore effort from Tifft, but the story leaves readers with more questions than answers. The narrative style alternates between first person and stream of conscience and at times is hard to follow. Recommended only for larger collections or where the author’s previous work circulated well.
... bizarre, captivating ... Dracula is not the strangest character in this novel ... Tifft dexterously and lucidly handles the pervasive confusion. This is a sharp, head-spinning story about two lovers desperately seeking nourishment.
Tifft delivers the literary equivalent of a fever dream, complete with baroque prose, stream-of-consciousness storytelling, and alternating first-person, present-tense narratives that don’t quite sync up. An eccentric parade of bizarrely interconnected and ostensibly interchangeable characters adds to the surreal atmosphere and makes the tale feel a bit like a play, itself—something on the order of Our Town meets Waiting for Godot as imagined by David Lynch. Questions go unanswered and mysteries go unsolved, but then, that rather seems Tifft’s point ... An entertaining if inscrutable meditation on identity and the performative nature of existence.
