Title: Wildly inconsistent in plotting and tone
Product review: This Clive Barker effort begins promisingly, but fails to deliver substantial incentive to reward the reader. Will Rabjohns, photographer and British expatriate, suffers a coma which leads him to re-explore the pains of his extraordinary early life. The childhood flashbacks are easily the strongest points of the novel. Though haunting and bleak, this subplot is full of magical wonder, drawing the reader into the finely-rendered boyhood psyche of young Will. However, these childhood flashbacks are marred by the eventual introduction of gratuitous sexuality, though I admit this is my subjective reaction. Despite other reviewers' objections, the homosexual subtext is truly inoffensive, but what is offensive is the mundane storytelling of the adult Will's daily routine after awaking from the coma. The remainder of the novel is written without much soul. Had Barker reimagined Sacrament as a childhood story, it surely would have been a winner.
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