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Title: Interesting premise, poor execution, occasionally great
Review: The premise is frequently discussed in the other reviews. The execution on this premise is so-so. The characters he chooses are all very depressed people with calamitous lives that touch upon one another. The book is seriously depressing. In addition, the pace is at times glacially slow. It was difficult to finish. The one saving grace is that here and there Wilder writes an utterly brilliant passage. But invariably these passages are set in such dark and uninteresting contexts that you wonder if they weren't penned separately and sort of forced into the story at specific junctures.But even for these passages the dullness and moroseness of the characters' stories hardly makes reading this book worthwhile. I cannot recommend it.
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