This is a very literate and well phrased account of a New York philosophy professor's life as he deals with lymphoma, with the questions of why me and why not me, and with the way life goes along oblivious to the concepts of fairness and logic. The main character is sympathetic, the basic story is interesting. The many, many digressions are erudite, philosophical (appropriately to the main character's profession) and irritating. Maybe I have spent too much time in genre fiction, but I didn't have the patience to pursue the narrator's agile mind down these twisting byways. By the middle of the book I was scanning each paragraph to decide if it pertained to the story in a meaningful way, and skipping those that didn't. Some people will love this book, I think, and they will be better people than I. But for me the bottom line of any read is the ability to glue my attention to the page, and this book fell a little short.