The book is doing a lot, but for good reason ... A book for readers seeking wild, ambitious literature ... Even with occasional misfires, The Occidental Book of the Dead just might be something the literary world needs to see more of: It’s ambitious, creative and, most important of all, unapologetic ... It will not be a novel for everyone. It doesn’t want to be. And that’s a large part of why it succeeds.
A witty, protean novel that delves into the racial and social complexities of the South through the lens of police corruption and one Black cop’s reckoning with his own choices.
Nothing is what it seems in this spellbinding and profanely funny novel ... The author thrillingly plays on expectations of a sympathetic main character and a story of vindication by keeping the reader guessing at the truth and the nature of his protagonist. Fans of Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise will devour this.
Hefty, free-wheeling, sharp-witted, disquieting ... As witty as it is unflinching ... A swing-for-the-fences novel, both a gripping procedural and high literary study of American bigotry.
