Title: Close but no cigar
Product review: This novel doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. Gangster crime? Alienation philosophy? Bottom-of-the-pit coming of age? In the end, it doesn't matter, because the book is too dreary to live.This is a depressing story: grim, ugly, bleak, stark, violent, loveless, empty. It sinks itself in its morass of betrayal, savagery, torture and slaughter. And I warn you, it leaves a nasty aftertaste.Does he have writing chops? Yes, indeed. He's got a fresh way with words, great atmospherics, humor and, although he muddles a bit between tenses, and sometimes prattles on beyond the worth of the passage, he's reasonably clear. But who cares? -- the story is not worth reading.
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