Lu is an aspiring young photographer who’s flat broke and yet to have any success. It’s the early 90s, and despite Lu’s poverty she’s still able to keLu is an aspiring young photographer who’s flat broke and yet to have any success. It’s the early 90s, and despite Lu’s poverty she’s still able to keep a space in a massive (albeit freezing and rat-infested) Brooklyn loft, where she and numerous other artists are basically squatting. She’s 400 days into a self-portrait project when she takes a once-in-a-lifetime photograph: an image of herself jumping, in which an unfocused shape, seen through the window, appears to perfectly balance the composition. But the shape is in fact the blurred form of Max, her upstairs neighbours’ nine-year-old son, falling to his death from the top of the building. As Lu becomes increasingly convinced the image is a masterpiece that could launch her career, she also grows close to Kate, Max’s mother. Lu is close to starving, desperate to exhibit the photo and equally desperate not to lose Kate. Add in her conviction that Max’s ghost is haunting her apartment, and it seems clear Lu is heading for either a breakdown or a breakthrough. Maybe both.
Self-Portrait with Boy seemed perfect for me: an art novel with a moral dilemma at its heart, usually a reliably gripping combination. It’s a little quieter than I was expecting, albeit well-written. Lu is a conundrum: she can be unpleasantly selfish, seeing her father (who raised her alone) mostly as an inconvenience or embarrassment; yet she’s too inert, not ruthless enough, to be a juicy antiheroine. All in all Lu is quite a blurry character, perhaps exactly what people mean when they talk about ‘morally grey’. I think her arc could have gone in a slightly more interesting direction, but there are some good details here – I liked that Lu is genuinely poor; characters in these sort of stories so often have rich parents who can swoop in at a convenient juncture – and while I’ve got no way of knowing whether it’s accurate, the book brings early-90s Brooklyn to life vividly. While this story lacks the propulsive nature of Fake Like Me or the emotional core of What I Loved, it might appeal to anyone who enjoyed either....more
I really didn’t get on with this, which was a disappointment after how much I enjoyed Eben Venter’s fascinatingly rich novels Wolf, Wolf and TrencI really didn’t get on with this, which was a disappointment after how much I enjoyed Eben Venter’s fascinatingly rich novels Wolf, Wolf and Trencherman. It’s an interesting case: the aforementioned books were first published in Afrikaans, then translated into English; as there’s no credited translator for this one, I assumed it had been translated by Venter himself. But reading through the reviews here, I discovered that actually, he wrote the book in English first then translated it himself for the Afrikaans edition. I wonder if this can account for the general lack of clarity – not just in the language (though there are plenty of mistakes and cumbersome or nonsensical phrases), but running through the whole book, making it a peculiarly muddled story that never seems to settle down and find its groove.
Each chapter depicts an episode in the life of the protagonist, Simon Avend. These scenes are each followed by a supplementary chapter in which Simon meets with his therapist, Dr Spiteri, and discusses his feelings about the events he’s just described. Most of the chapters are about sexual encounters, though some centre on family gatherings, and Simon often returns to memories of his childhood.
Another thing I gathered from reading the reviews was that Venter, by his own admission, has no experience of therapy, which is absolutely no surprise given that Dr Spiteri has to be the most unprofessional and unbelievable therapist I’ve ever encountered in fiction. (Of course, I’m sure the real world is full of bad therapists; the problem here is the way in which Spiteri’s method is presented as both objectively good and helpful to Simon.) Her sermons about Michel Foucault and ancient Greece don’t seem to belong in this story at all, and her apparent attraction to Simon is handled awkwardly.
The narrative’s restlessness makes it hard to feel the reader ever learns anything conclusive about Simon. It sounds an obtuse criticism, but there just doesn’t seem to be a point to this story; it feels more like something the author should have just written for himself. And the subjects of masculinity, sexuality and father/son relationships were addressed far more effectively in Wolf, Wolf.
When I picked up The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas – chunky, replete with lengthy footnotes – I thought it’d keep me occupied for about a week. When I picked up The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas – chunky, replete with lengthy footnotes – I thought it’d keep me occupied for about a week. 24 hours later, I had finished it, having been largely unable to put it down. The first line is ‘This book is dangerous’; it might just as well be ‘This book is addictive’.
Ezra Maas is several books in one. It’s a biography of the eponymous artist, a man who has managed to remain almost entirely anonymous despite a long, lucrative and influential career. This biography is the work of one ‘Daniel James’, and the other main narrative concerns his attempts to write it and the strange obstacles he comes up against. ‘Daniel’ (for the Daniel in this book is just as much an invention as Maas), we learn, has disappeared, and the story is picked up by an anonymous friend who – largely through footnotes – tries to make sense of the incomplete manuscript. Additionally, documents relating to both Maas and ‘Daniel’ are scattered throughout the text: articles from newspapers and blogs, emails, transcripts of conversations, and an oral history of Maas comprising fragments from interviews with those who knew him.
The result is a maze-like narrative filled with mysteries, misdirects and layers of (un)reality. The ‘Daniel’ thread is a noir pastiche, deliberately stuffed with cliches, femmes fatales and corny dialogue; meanwhile, Anonymous’s footnotes work to undermine its pretensions, assuring us the hackneyed style is an intentional smokescreen. Acquaintances of Maas give accounts of him that vary so wildly you begin to suspect you’re reading about at least a few different people. It’s impossible not to be fascinated. As the book’s writer-detective hero pursued the truth, I found myself doing the same: reading one more chapter, and one more, and so on, in the hope that something would click together.
The obvious reference point, I suppose, is Marisha Pessl’s Night Film, which similarly blends the story of an elusive artist, filmmaker and author with a noirish tale of one man’s search for the truth. But I found myself more strongly remined of several novels about fictional musicians, especially The Book of Luce by L.R. Fredericks – which also charts a writer’s quest to discover the real story about the enigmatic figure of the title – and Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction and The Ghost Network. If you can get your head around the concept of Daisy Jones & The Six written by Borges, this book is basically that. Labyrinthine and clever, but its chief pleasure is that it’s very readable and just great fun.
Thank god I decided to pick this up when I did – it got me out of the biggest reading slump I’ve had all year. Delia’s story, from a tiny and wild IriThank god I decided to pick this up when I did – it got me out of the biggest reading slump I’ve had all year. Delia’s story, from a tiny and wild Irish island to the glamour of the French Riviera, is a superb character study, something like Tana French meets (early) William Boyd. (I thought Diana from Stargazer was going to be the most riveting character I read about in 2022; now, she has competition.) This is a near-400-page book that’s so captivating, so easy to get lost in, it feels like it’s about a quarter of that length. Highly recommended to similarly jaded readers (and everyone else).
One of those cases in which writing a proper review feels redundant because the book has been discussed so much, I have nothing to add. But I really eOne of those cases in which writing a proper review feels redundant because the book has been discussed so much, I have nothing to add. But I really enjoyed the humour and strangeness of this, and found Janina's morbid thoughts weirdly warm and reassuring at times.
Death is at the gates, I thought. But then death is always at our gates, at every hour of the day and Night, I told myself. For the best conversations are with yourself. At least there's no risk of a misunderstanding.
Perhaps oddly, the book it most reminded me of was The Rabbit Back Literature Society; it gave me the same sense of dark and offbeat cosiness.
(3.5) All the Names They Used for God is a slippery collection of stories, difficult to get a handle on. Most collections I read either have some unif(3.5) All the Names They Used for God is a slippery collection of stories, difficult to get a handle on. Most collections I read either have some unifying theme or, at least, consist of stories written within the confines of a particular genre. This book, however, has no consistency in terms of setting, genre, voice or style. It's both uneven and exciting.
'The World by Night' follows an albino woman living on the prairie, who takes to exploring underground caves while her husband is away on a long trip. 'Glass-Lung' is about a Danish man who, after an industrial accident, has to live with delicate lungs coated in glass. These first two stories have something of the fairytale about them, even if they're not explicitly fantastical.
'Logging Lake' is that mainstay of the modern-short-story-collection-by-a-woman, the 'bad date' story. Sort of. After a painful breakup, Robert decides to be more spontaneous and goes on a hiking trip with Terri, a volatile woman he meets online. There's a great twist ending.
'Killer of Kings' seems to be set in the 17th century, as we learn that the protagonist has met Galileo. This is more clearly a fantasy story: it involves an angel visiting a poet to help him create his 'great work'. It's rather ephemeral and didn't entirely work for me.
The near-title story, 'All the Names for God', is the best thing in the book. Promise and Abike are schoolgirls who are kidnapped by terrorists and spend years in captivity; eventually, they are forced to marry their captors. But a local woman teaches Abike a trick, a power, that allows the girls to control men. This is one of the few stories in the collection to be narrated in first person, which helps to make the characters credible. An excellent story.
Unsurprisingly, 'Robert Greenman and the Mermaid' is about a man named Robert Greenman who gets obsessed with a mermaid. It has a powerful, palpable atmosphere. In 'Anything You Might Want', a young couple escape the girl's controlling father. It didn't pan out as I expected, and that made me like it more.
'Manus' is a proper sci-fi story, albeit a messily elaborate one. A race of gelatinous aliens known as 'the Masters' come to Earth and, for reasons unknown, begin replacing humans' hands with metal forks. There are some interesting and amusing details – when the Masters speak English, they all do so in the same annoying voice, 'a high-pitched, androgynous blend of Long Island nasal tones and fat Midwestern vowels'. But it raises far more questions than it answers, with the ending only serving to pile more bizarre developments on top of an already cumbersome concept.
'Pleiades' is also sci-fi, of a softer type. Two geneticists create seven identical sisters, but as they grow up, each girl in turn is struck down with terminal illness. With just two left alive, the last remaining healthy(ish) septuplet runs away and picks up a hitchhiker. Despite the premise, it's lyrical and melancholic rather than plot-driven.
Something simmers beneath the surface in The Message. In a narrative choice I wasn't wild about, the characters here are known only as Mother and Son. They're eating dinner together when Mother hears sounds upstairs and realises a bird is trapped in the house. In fact, it's in Son's room. Does its presence mean anything, and if so, what? The story seems set up to deliver a particular conclusion – yet at the last minute it avoids this, leaving the reader with a lingering feeling of unease.
The Violet Eye is about a family in flux. Following the breakdown of his parents' marriage, Jamie bonds with his dad as the two of them care for Bob's racing pigeons. For his part, Bob is desperate to reunite with his ex-wife, but is unable to conceive of a way to reach out that doesn't involve his beloved pigeons. The culmination is an (unintentionally?) brutal rejection which signals an irreversible – and sinister – change. The Violet Eye is certainly effective, but it lacks the eerie edge I'm accustomed to finding in these stories, leaving me a little disappointed.
(4.5) In Quezon City, a translator named Magsalin meets an American filmmaker, Chiara Brasi – the daughter of the famous director Ludo Brasi, who shot(4.5) In Quezon City, a translator named Magsalin meets an American filmmaker, Chiara Brasi – the daughter of the famous director Ludo Brasi, who shot his Vietnam War film The Unintended in the Philippines in the 70s. The Unintended took inspiration from the 1901 Balangiga massacre, part of the Philippine-American War, and now Chiara wants to make her own film about it. She's intent on visiting Balangiga and wants Magsalin to accompany her. Though Magsalin agrees to help, she has other ideas too. Having read Chiara's script, which centres on an American photographer named Cassandra Chase, Magsalin writes her own, in which she fictionalises the life of the Brasi family and imagines Ludo having an affair with Caz, a Filipina teacher.
At least, I think that's all correct. Insurrecto is an astonishing maze of interlocking narratives; it took me a while to untangle (some of) the threads and figure out what it was doing. In its telling, it recreates the disorientating effect of a factual story filtered and warped by several layers of invention. The chapters are out of order, Magsalin and Chiara's dual/duelling scripts intercut with one another. The camera lens is a recurring motif: these are stories shaped by the medium and/or the storyteller. Scenes are interrupted by a director's instructions or a reference to costumes or lighting; Magsalin and Chiara think in terms of the staged implausibility of their own circumstances.
Consistently meta, Insurrecto itself talks to the reader as much as the characters do. It's a book as a living, speaking thing. We are reminded that 'the world does not exist without an observer'. Magsalin tells herself: 'a reader does not need to know everything'.
How many times has she waded into someone else's history... and she would know absolutely nothing about the scenes, the historical background that drives them, the confusing cultural details, all emblematic, she imagines, to the Irish or the Russians or the French, and not really her business—and yet she dives in, to try to figure out what it is the writer wishes to tell... She gets stuck in the faulty notion that everything in a book must be grasped.
Yet Magsalin still notes down her questions, and I too kept pausing to refer to the cast of characters or look something up (a place, an untranslated word, a name). It's discombobulating – fiction is mixed with fact at every level: Apostol describes fictional figures with the same gravity and detail as real ones, and that made me want to question and check everything. Even now, I'm wondering whether some of the people mentioned were actually Apostol's inventions, or simply too obscure to easily look up online. (I'm not the only one – put 'Cassandra Chase' into Google and you'll get 'Balangiga' and 'photographer' as suggested terms, though the character is fictional. But the insurrecto heroine Casiana Nacionales was a real person, albeit a little-known one, and certainly unknown to me until this book.)
Insurrecto inhabits a similar space to Martin MacInnes' Infinite Ground and Laura van den Berg's The Third Hotel: books that start with a 'mystery' and spiral out in a hundred directions to become something much bigger, richer, weirder. The difference between those books and this one – the thing that makes Apostol's work stronger – is that Insurrecto is built on real history. At Balangiga, American forces retaliated to the murder of 48 of their men by ordering the massacre of everyone in the province above the age of 10, resulting in thousands of deaths. While the idea of 'who gets to tell the story' is not unique to this book, the way Apostol handles it – with multiple/layered (simultaneous) perspectives, broad-ranging empathy and wit – feels like something entirely new. Insurrecto is not necessarily about reclaiming the narrative, but instead about understanding that it (like any story) belongs to no-one; that it can't be reduced to a pleasantly sanitised, straightforward account; that any one person's understanding of it represents an interplay between history, the present, fact, fiction and personal experience.
It's tricky to know exactly how to put this, because I mean it as a compliment, but it doesn't sound like one: Insurrecto is a 340-page novel that feels like 1,000 pages. It's mind-bogglingly dense with detail and... I want to say 'cleverness', but that seems like an insufficient term. It's a dizzying achievement, and one of the most impressive modern novels I've read.
A lightweight but skilful sci-fi novel-in-stories – I think it's meant to be YA, but there's definitely crossover appeal here. The starting point is 'A lightweight but skilful sci-fi novel-in-stories – I think it's meant to be YA, but there's definitely crossover appeal here. The starting point is 'Matched Pair': in a very near-future version of our world, the organs of teenage twins (both terminally ill) can be 'synthesised' so one of them will be able to live a long and healthy life. The book continues this theme through a series of interlinked tales that stretch into the far future. Body modification technology and gene editing become ever more advanced, to the point that they change the structure of global society; in the far version of the future seen in 'Curiosities', modified humans and primitive 'protos' exist separately.
By far my favourite story was 'California'. At around 16, Californian teenager Jake is diagnosed with incurable cancer; he enters an Eastern European cryogenics facility, where his body will be frozen until a cure is possible. Decades later, when the world has changed beyond recognition, he finds himself transformed into a part-robot slave, mining platinum on an asteroid. Though the premise sounds quite ridiculous written like that, this story actually has much better character development than any of the others. The flashbacks to Jake's past do a lot to flesh him out and give the outlandish plot a believable grounding. 'Eight Waded', the rather tragic story of a highly intelligent (modified) boy working with dolphins and manatees, is also one of the more intriguing segments.
Fans of the mystery novel that uses a podcast as a plot device (e.g. the Six Stories books and Sadie), rejoice: here's another one. And I'm not yet ovFans of the mystery novel that uses a podcast as a plot device (e.g. the Six Stories books and Sadie), rejoice: here's another one. And I'm not yet over the allure of this nascent minigenre – gotta catch 'em all. In I Know You Know, a filmmaker begins digging into a 20-year-old (and seemingly solved) crime. The podcaster, Cody, has personal links to the case – the two murdered boys were his best friends – and he's convinced the wrong man was convicted. As well as transcripts of the podcast episodes, we get the perspectives of two others: the detective who investigated the original case and the mother of one of the boys. It's a skilful, compelling mystery that makes good use of its multiple protagonists, cleverly moving one from unlikeable to sympathetic while simultaneously doing the opposite with another. It's all topped off with a Twist You'll Never See Coming (I mean, I actually didn't see the twist coming at all and yet it actually makes sense – you don't get that every day). Good solid entertainment.
(3.5) Does for the horror genre what Ghosts: A Haunted History does for... well, ghosts, obviously. Jones looks at the foundations and meanings of(3.5) Does for the horror genre what Ghosts: A Haunted History does for... well, ghosts, obviously. Jones looks at the foundations and meanings of horror media through the lens of five popular themes – monsters, the supernatural, the body, the mind, and science – bookended by the introduction's whistle-stop history of horror and the afterword, which deals with 'horror since the millennium'. Like Ghosts, the book doesn't go into immense detail about any of these topics, instead acting as a useful primer for those seeking a starting point. Little in the book was new to me, but it's clearly expressed, well-structured, and enjoyable to read. There's also a pleasingly straightforward bibliography to accompany each chapter.
Hmm. This is the sort of book I felt moderately positive about when I finished it – because it’s well-written, because I was interested throughout, etHmm. This is the sort of book I felt moderately positive about when I finished it – because it’s well-written, because I was interested throughout, etc. – but on reflection... the more I think about it, the more problems I have. At first I couldn’t quite understand why I felt so irritated by Ben’s fixation with what ‘really happened’ to Lilian: on the one hand, she’s a long-ago ex who had turned out to be lying to him anyway; on the other, who wouldn’t become obsessed if their partner (appeared to have) died in a disaster like 9/11? After sitting on it for a bit, I thought it was because nothing about Lilian as a character rang true for me, meaning Ben’s love for her didn’t either. But I don’t think it’s really even that – it’s the fact that it’s obvious Priest didn’t want to write a novel about these characters, he wanted to write a book about 9/11 conspiracies, and to argue that some of them are correct. Lilian feels like a hollow cipher, a way for the narrator to come into contact with the ideas that obsess him, because she is. The web of coincidences between Ben, Jeanne and her family, Lilian, her husband, and others feels artificial because it is. Not in the sense that everything in fiction is of course ‘artificial’, but in the sense that these characters and situations are not germane to what the author truly wanted to say.
There’s some good stuff: Ben and Lucinda’s visit to the ruined hotel, during which Lucinda seems to recall false memories (which, to be honest, I probably experienced as the most exciting moment of the novel because it seemed to hint at a speculative aspect); Ben’s fascinating conversations with Kyril Tatarov, touching on both mathematical and sociological theorems; the presumably significant doubling of names, with two women whose names take three forms, each reflected by another woman whose name begins with the same letter (Lilian/Lily/Lil and Lucinda, Jacqueline/Jacqui/Jaye and Jeanne). As much as I wanted these parts of the story to work for me, however, eventually they were just drowned out by the conspiracy theory thread. (And on that: while in the author’s note Priest takes care to distance himself (albeit vaguely) from Ben’s views, the assertion that social media is rife with nonsense but ‘websites and blogs’ are reliable, integrous sources of information is bizarre.)
What a strange experience this book was. It's awkwardly written, sloppily edited, and has plot holes the size of oceans, but the underlying story is eWhat a strange experience this book was. It's awkwardly written, sloppily edited, and has plot holes the size of oceans, but the underlying story is extremely compelling. I kept thinking 'I'll just read a bit more, find out what happens next', and I kept thinking that until I'd read the whole book. It imagines a future (about 35 years from now) in which the UK population has, en masse, been moved into various levels of free accommodation in 'megacities'. This comes at a cost, of course: old age, disability and ill health have been demonised into extinction, and at retirement age, everyone enters a 'Dignitorium' where, after a year of deluxe living, they are euthanised. Additionally, anyone living in free housing must keep consuming to justify their 'Right to Reside', else they risk being demoted to a lower class – or, worse, to the Zone, a lawless wasteland lying outside the walls of London. Our narrator, Alice, finds her comfortable life beginning to unravel when her husband Philip disappears and she's suspended from work. Convinced Philip is still alive, Alice starts questioning the system and reaches out to her estranged sister – one of the mega-rich Owners – for help.
Wolf Country reminded me of Suicide Club by Rachel Heng (similar in its depiction of a supposedly utopian future which is nightmarish beneath the surface, and similarly unfocused, though the plots are kind of opposites) and The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist (both books feature forced retirement to a luxurious facility, and both have a cold, distant protagonist it's difficult to feel anything for). While this is an uneven book – the ending in particular is very odd – there's no denying it held my attention. Still, I'm not exactly sure whether I can recommend it.
Part of the NewCon Press Novellas line, bought because I really enjoyed the others I've read and the plot sounded promising. It's great – a really entPart of the NewCon Press Novellas line, bought because I really enjoyed the others I've read and the plot sounded promising. It's great – a really entertaining blend of ghost story, sci-fi and mystery, clearly intended as an homage to The Stone Tape. It follows a scientist based at an old country house, where she's conducting an experiment intended to prove that instantaneous communication is possible by sending information backwards in time. The place is reputedly haunted, though she doesn't know that until a team of ghost-hunters arrive... and discover inexplicable links between Susan's work and a murder that happened at the house more than 30 years earlier. Ghost Frequencies is good old-fashioned fun, with several intertwined plotlines (all satisfyingly untangled by the end) and lots of characters chasing clues (something I really love reading about). I also learned that 'spooky action at a distance' is a legitimate scientific term, which is delightful.
The clocks have gone back and Halloween has passed – now it's officially winter, I have a craving for historical fiction. The House on Vesper Sands isThe clocks have gone back and Halloween has passed – now it's officially winter, I have a craving for historical fiction. The House on Vesper Sands is a Victorian pastiche with a mystery at its heart and touches of the macabre – a bit like The Woman in Black spliced with a Dickens novel.
The opening chapter is brilliantly captivating; I found it irresistible. Esther Tull, a seamstress, visits a grand house at night and is coldly received by a sneering butler. While she has official business at the house, her real intentions are quite different. I had only been reading for a few minutes when I found myself completely caught up in Esther's narrative, hoping desperately that she would be able to carry out her plan, despite knowing nothing of the story behind it. The atmosphere is wonderful, too: as Esther steps into the street, O'Donnell perfectly captures the magic hush of snow falling at night.
The bad news is that nothing else in the book is as good as that stunning prologue. The good news is that it's still a great yarn, absorbing and enjoyably frothy. We follow two characters – hapless student Gideon and cunning society columnist Octavia – as they each investigate a mystery, the threads of which eventually entwine. Young women are being kidnapped by a secretive group whose intentions are unclear; all London is whispering about the 'Spiriters'. And this is somehow linked to a shadowy figure named Lord Strythe and his sister's house on the Kent coast.
The House on Vesper Sands reminded me a lot of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and its sequels. While it lacks the more overt, steampunk-style fantasy embellishments of Dahlquist's novels, this is a proper old-fashioned adventure that immerses the reader in a rich vision of Victorian London. It pits a couple of likeable, plucky characters against the machinations of a powerful cabal; there's a colourful supporting cast (with the imperious Inspector Cutter particularly standing out). I can also imagine this appealing to fans of Sarahs Perry and Waters, Susan Hill's Victorian ghost stories, and Laura Purcell.
(3.5) The macabre stories in Apple & Knife are inspired by fairytales, ghost stories, Indonesian folklore and, occasionally, real events. If you liked(3.5) The macabre stories in Apple & Knife are inspired by fairytales, ghost stories, Indonesian folklore and, occasionally, real events. If you liked The Doll's Alphabet, Her Body and Other Parties or Angela Carter's short fiction, you'll probably enjoy this: it's been described as 'feminist horror' and focuses either on female experiences, or on horrible men getting their comeuppance from gleefully villainous women. As first stories so often do, 'The Blind Woman Without a Toe' sets the tone: it's a version of 'Cinderella' told from the perspective of an ugly sister, and explores what becomes of the characters after the traditional tale's 'happily ever after'. Standouts are 'Beauty and the Seventh Dwarf', the most grotesque of the lot, in which a man discovers his lucrative new job involves acting out a rape fantasy with a disfigured woman, and 'Vampire', brief but stunningly, vividly written.
The stories are typically about 10 pages long: not quite long enough, in my view, to accommodate the ambition of their concepts. 'Doors' is a good example of the collection's weaknesses: the characters are well-drawn and the exposition is intriguing, but the 'doors' metaphor feels crowbarred in, and I still don't really understand what happened to Bambang. 'The Obsessive Twist' and 'A Single Firefly, a Thousand Rats' read like epics crammed uncomfortably into small spaces, and as a result seem somewhat disjointed. Overall, this is one of those debuts that show promise but lack polish: I didn't love it but I'll be keeping an eye out for more from Paramaditha. I'm rounding the rating up for that, and because it's interesting to read fiction of this sort from an Indonesian author, referencing folk tales, customs and mythical figures many western readers won't be familiar with.
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