It was okay. Lindsay's right: this is well-written but quiet. But it felt a bit like a short story stretched to novel(la) length. And Moore's apparent restraint and subtlety is made possible in part because she makes her protagonist a total weirdo robot. Futh is a creepy, obsessive nebbish -- such an off-putting weirdo that it seems implausible that he ever would have wound up married at all. It was difficult to read the parts where his wife's disappointment was most clear, but it also was hard to believe she ever could have proceeded so far in the relationship.

I'm prepared to believe that a mother's absence could scar someone and make it difficult for them to have healthy relationships. But it's a little harder to believe the resulting deficits would manifest themselves in such uncomplicated ways. Futh's problems are simple, pathetic and childlike.

If Futh was a more complicated character or anything less than completely monomaniacal, Moore's approach might not have sufficed (though I suppose it did work quite well with Ester, whose story I thought was much more interesting and affecting).

And I did enjoy it, even though the primary emotion it elicited was sad #smdh-ism.