Wayne read and liked P. Sannie's review of World's End :

"The story opens up in the late 1960s with Walter Van Brunt, a 20-something year old who sees ghosts and had a motorcycle accident that caused him to lose his foot. He attempts to find out what happened to his father and why his father abandoned him....more The story opens up in the late 1960s with Walter Van Brunt, a 20-something year old who sees ghosts and had a motorcycle accident that caused him to lose his foot. He attempts to find out what happened to his father and why his father abandoned him.

T.C. Boyle then switches between Walter's story in the present, Walter's Dutch ancestors in colonial America before the English took over, and sometimes goes into the story of the Communist raids in the 1950s. The entire novel plays out in upstate New York and all of the characters are somehow interconnected.

The character list is long and wide, but Boyle has a list explaining everyone in the beginning of the novel. It's necessary to check it in the beginning so you don't get everyone mixed up, but it becomes easier to remember once you get into the story. There are Dutch colonists, the rich Van Wart family and their tenants, the Van Brunts, plus a scatter of English colonists and Native Americans. In the 1960s, all of the characters stem from those in the 1600s, but none of them are aware how similar their lives reflect those in the past.

Perhaps this sounds confusing, but Boyle writes well and once you get it into it, it's very difficult to put down. What I loved about the novel the most is its mix of historical fiction with family drama in the present. It never gets boring and just when you start to think, "But what happened to...?", Boyle delivers and gives you what you want.(less) "