Customer Reviews

In the Middle of All This

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

One of the characters in this uncompromising book remarks that life always takes place "in the middle of all this," and it certainly does. This is a long journey in a short book and each page is fresh, beautifully conceived and wonderfully well-written. What a pleasure!

There's going to be a wide disparity of opinions about this book, since it deals with a hot-button, emotional subject: a sibling dying of cancer. For my money, the book and especially the writing are on the mark. For all its seriousness, it's also brutally funny, as we follow Martin self-destructing as he tries to give solace to his sister.

This read more like a collection of connected stories than a novel. The voices of the three narrators are compelling, but the book suffers from a lack of focus. The central conflict, involving the sister's illness, is marred by her disappearance, leaving the main character to meditate about the issues of mortality, love and family, stalling the story's momentum. The anecdotes from academic life, though entertaining, are distracting, because the minor characters arouse more curiosity than the main players.

Why does a man think that to be a man he has to use the "f" word constantly? In all its parts of speech. That was a major turnoff about this book, plus I thought it rather...I hate to say it...dumb!

Was there a plot here? Oh, I must have missed it.