Honestly, I found this story to be a bit wanting for a Pulitzer runner-up. The telephone motif, for me, was a minor feature of the book which was more about dealing with loss and compensating by trying to help another group of people. I felt that it was just ok. I didn't buy that the black protagonist would survive several contacts with white neo-nazis without a bang-up, but it was really the writing that I felt was just above average. I am not sure which version of the plot that I read though,

A smart, sometimes sad, shapeshifting book that took me by surprise with its abrupt ending.* * *What's that, there are THREE possible endings? How enigmatic. I landed ending C. I don't think the relationship was right for me.* * *It's not just the ending - there are three VERSIONS of this book? For the curious, who, like me, just need to know - the differences are detailed here. In my distraction I appear to have missed a pretty huge plot point, which I only see because it isn't shared by all th...

I am an Everett fan. My first experience was So Much Blue and I've been making way through his 29 other works since. What attracts me about his work is hard to pin down in some respects. The more obvious features -- his ability to craft characters that I somehow already know (or know about), his facility to steer plots into events that are at once surprising and yet completely rational for the character, and certainly his ability to put on paper some of the most beautiful prose I've experienced

What a phenomenal book! This is the work of a deeply intelligent and agile creative mind. So glad to have read it, even if the plot is incredibly sad - a middle-aged academic couple in L.A. have to watch their beloved pre-teen daughter succumb to a rare and horrible degenerative nervous system disease.It is fascinating to me that Everett published three distinct versions of this novel. I read the "B" version, and am going to try to hunt down the other versions to compare and contrast. Another gr...

My wife and I loved our daughter, and so we were together. Had it not been for Sarah, I doubt we would have continued as a couple. We liked each other well enough and I was a faithful and devoted husband, but I was bored, and I am fairly certain she was as well. But that was okay. I was not bored with my family. I was not bored with my child. I was not unhappy with Meg. I was not unhappy with my job, which incidentally bored me most of the time. I was, to say it again, simply in love with my da

Pearblossom highway by David HockneyMy second Percival Everett book. It’s well plotted. Lots of devices tell us what’s coming. Mostly we hear the ordinary life narrated by Zach Wells, professor of Geology at a California University. How he loves his daughter, Sarah, and she’s a gorgeous pre-teen smart, likable, quirky well raised kid. But then there’s the little interludes that Everitt likes. In this case they go like this – there’s all these murdered Mexican women. Hundreds apparently. Why? We

I love a book that demands (or at least rewards) careful reading. This one does that, though I certainly didn't catch all references and nuances. In fact, without a book group I would have missed at least one significant event. My impression is that every word choice is intentional in how it influences the description and moves the story forward. There's so much going on here, a second reading would likely be worthwhile.The sections describing trying to be a father as your child is dying are dev...

It took a few tries to get into this book and sync with it, I didn't like the main character, and thought he made the wrong assumptions about women (and couldn't tell if this was the author or the narrator.) But in the end I enjoyed reading it quite a bit, and then enjoyed the experience of thinking about it and talking about it with others since, which is an experience designed by the author. He wrote three slightly different versions so it's interesting to hear how people's views on the story

I'll be thinking about this book for a long, long time.First reading, NE version "A," May 14, 2020To me, this is one of the saddest stories I've ever read. It is about ways that parents can lose their children even while those children remain alive. But it is steady, and understated, and there is enough redemption at the end to allow the reader to believe that people can come through this sort of unbearable loss.The heavy subject matter is in contrast with the publication gimmick that gives the

You know how sometimes actors rave about working with "an actor's director"? Meaning the director has a deep respect for what the actors bring, and rather than imposing his vision, is only interested in amplifying and bringing the actor's best self out? Well, Percival Everett is "a reader's writer". I’m interested not in the authority of the artist, but the authority of the reader, he is quoted as saying. I can't tell you how refreshing that idea is. A writer respecting the authority of the read...

Brilliant writer. Love the cadence of the novel. The book is not quite for me because I struggled to feel a connection to the protagonist. That’s me not the book’s fault.

CleavagePercival’s protagonist, Zach Wells, learns the truth behind the apparently contradictory meanings of the English verb ‘to cleave’ - both ‘to attach closely’ and ‘to separate forcefully’. After all, isn’t the world, from quantum physics to human affection, paradoxical?“I considered that word, cleave, and wondered how it could contradict itself so cleanly, wondered if the two meanings canceled each other out, leaving nothing in its wake. Cleave.”No one ever mentions that having children is...

How on earth do you review a book that is as personal, as tender, and as unnamable as your own soul? Reading Percival Everett, and this new novel in particular, is like entering the territory where all life comes from. I had such a hit of this when I first began the book that I literally passed out. In yoga there are names for this. Suffice it to say that it’s when your consciousness is overwhelmed, stretched beyond its normal capacity. Once I came to, all my subsequent reading pauses were volun...

4ish stars.The kind of book that can only truly be appreciated through discussion and inquiry. How do I interpret that, did I miss something, what's the significance? I appreciated it in its own right just based on the perspective and voice of the main character, and the varied plot lines. But I didn't truly appreciate it until I read explanations and insights from articles and reviews after I finished reading. I realized there was a lot I didn't pick up on and a lot of the cleverness and finess...

Shortlisted for the 2021 ToB.Zach Wells by his own admission is dull. He admits that most people know more about nearly everything than him. Zach is a geologist/paleobiologist. Basically, he studies bones and fossils. Intriguingly at the beginning of the novel he tells the reader,“At the time of this writing, I do not know whether I will live much longer, and you don’t know what I’m talking about”.He tells the reader that he is one of the many people who are not good at being happy. He cannot pu...

This was well-done. Maybe it was too well done. What an incredibly sad and heartwrenching story this is. It broke my heart and forced me to imagine what it would be like to go through what these characters had to go through. And I didn't want to face it and I hope to never experience that kind of emotional pain and helplessness in real life. I'm telling you now: if you're a parent of a small child, you're going to go through an even tougher time than I did. This book is masterful from start to f...

[Some slightly spoiler-ish material is included in the review - proceed at your own risk!]3.5, rounded down.Although I had read Everett's last book (So Much Blue) and really enjoyed that, what impelled me to read this was all the hoopla over the 'gimmick' of publishing three SLIGHTLY different editions, which sounded interesting and unique - until I realized that unless I was going to track down the OTHER two versions and do a line by line comparison (something I wasn't sufficiently invested to

I read the paperback with the top compass pointing NE. In case you haven't heard:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...I'm a big Percival Everett fan. I could easily have read/enjoyed this as one of Everett's impressive technical constructions (see for example Glyph, or Percival Everett by Virgil Russell). Certainly, the main narrative thread, with the little girl with Batten disease, seemed to be leading me that way. Then the crumbs began to suggest an alternate path through the labyrinth.I'm...

Uncovering a new author can go either way, though in this case it was a revelation. Everett has a knack for storytelling and how he engages the reader is award worthyWe first meet Zach Wells, a black paleobotanist as he studies bird fossils deep in a South western cave then zoom to his college classroom for a lively discussion with his students. Zach is married to Meg, a poet and professor and their 12 year old daughter Sarah holds them together. Extremely bright for her age, she loves to hike t...

Pain, Pain, and more pain. Then finally some redemption, if not relief.I may have more to write once I've digested this novel more thoroughly.As far as the three endings go, if these were normal times - I find it hard to imagine what "normal" will be anymore - I'd be spending time visiting or calling (bookstores near me aren't found in a limited area) book shops to find copies with the two covers different than the one I have. For now, I'll play the hand I've been dealt, although as a strong Per...