Gutsy, funny, heart-wrenching ... Irreverent ... Somehow Kirshenbaum compels you to delve deeper, frenetically, into her complicated but bracing story, accompanied all the while by illustrations of phantom clock hands reminding you of the time ... It’s going to do its own thing — brighten up a room, get on your nerves, define the beginning of a new day or the end of an old one. Its beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This one couldn’t look away, and didn’t want to.
I initially found the second person a dubious choice, but I was quickly won over ... Claustrophobic ... Finely drawn ... Though this is far and away Kirshenbaum’s bleakest book — which is saying something — she has not lost her knack for narrative propulsion or her ear for pitch-black comedy.
