This book would not be my cup of tea at all, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading your review.

"do not look for science in your fiction"

Have you ever read or heard of David Eagleman's Sum? It's very speculative and 'out there' but also very scientifically accurate. I think you might like it. I loved it.

Thanks Lisa. And no, probably not the novel for you. But good for me! Yay!

Joshua Nomen-Mutatio wrote: ""do not look for science in your fiction"

Have you ever read or heard of David Eagleman's Sum? It's very speculative and 'out there' but also very scientifically accurate. I think you might like i..."

Ooo, sounds interesting. I'll have to look it up. Did you review?

My "review" is total bullshit filler that probably resulted mainly from just discovering screen capture technology. I really should delete it. But it does give a few lines about blending art and science and a rational engagement with speculation, so it's not a total cop out, I guess.

Anyway, I'm almost certain you'd like the book. Google around a bit for a better idea. There was an NPR piece on it which is what caused me to run out and buy it. The stories are super short (but effectively so) and he reads a few and I think some are posted as text there, too.

Sweet. That sounds right up my alley.

Ah, I'm glad you had a good experience with this one, Ceridwen.

Sounds exactly like what I'm looking for, though I think I'm the blank slater.

It's pretty awesome, Wendy. I'm glad I kept seeing you push it in comments on my feed. :)

Oh, and read it, Alidy! I want to see if what the blank sl8rs think! Because maybe its just a straight correlation, and you'll love it. Also, just warning, the ending is pretty brutal. I thought there was a symmetry to it, but opinion seems divided on whether it's a good ending or not.

I'm not well read in the Southern Gothic, either, but your observation about the trope of girls in it makes me wonder if Hotel Paradise falls in that tradition. I'd be interested in your take on that, should you ever read it.

That looks super interesting - and that whole crumbling manor house seems like it fits into the trope.

It's maybe a bit less dark -- certainly compared to FO'C, whose the only one you mention that I've read much of.

St Flannery is about as dark as they come though - this can't even hope to come close. (And it's not even trying, thank God.) There's a lot of that humming Ecclesiastes cynical, beautiful life philosophy here - and in a lot of those girls.

May be morbid of me, but I love love love depressing, horrible endings. They pack a punch. (And so often the happy endings feel like cop outs)

oh, man - what a great review of this great book.

You should check out O'Connor then. Man can she deliver.

I wouldn't call this depressing, exactly, but with a vengeance plot, you know nothing is going to end well. This made an interesting choice though, one I can see not loving. Worked for me.

karen wrote: "oh, man - what a great review of this great book."

Thanks karen!

Will do!

Lovely review, kind of lulling!


This is the South of St Flannery of the Knife.

Dune reference??

Eh?Eh! wrote: "This is the South of St Flannery of the Knife.

Dune reference??"

Kinda, yeah. Which is a little embarrassing. :/

Dork! Abomination!! :)

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I have read many terrible, irrelevent reviews on this site. Yours is not one of them. Bravo. Beautifully written. You hit all the reasons I liked this novel. At the time, I had not yet been properly introduced to O'Connor--something that makes me a bit ashamed and more than a bit dissolutioned with my public school education--and my familiarity to McCarthy was limited to 'The Road' alone. As you say, those facts may have enhanced my enjoyment of the novel. Even so, I still love the novel after diving head-first into the works of Faulkner, McCarthy, and O'Connor.

Thanks! There's a lot of really great reviews out there, but irrelevance is always going to be an issue. Even with me, occasionally.

I'm not sure high school and O'Connor should mix anyway; the results could be seriously tragic and/or baffling. So maybe it was a good thing!

Yeah, we read a couple O'Connor stories in high school and I don't think I or anyone else really got them, but in college I thought she was amazing.

I think I read some in high school? But Mum was a superfan, and explained a lot of the inexplicable stuff. She liked to quote from A Good Man is Hard To Find all the time too. "Tennesee is just a hillbilly dumping ground, and Georgia's a lousy state too."

You know, I do not know if my parents like O'Connor. They don't read short stories much.