Campbell Andrews > Recent Status Updates

boy, this is a fussy book. from the structure to the sentence-level.

is this what it finally decides to be, a thriller?

it's third-person limited perspective, ostensibly, with a smattering of first-person. yet every character's viewpoint, directly or indirectly, reads like a novelist's.

maybe the best thing about the book is the way it portrays the pull and shadow of New York City. but I'm not a believer in NYC exceptionalism (nor any city's); all places have weight for somebody.

just simply too much detail. why do we need to know the size of an heirloom mattress?? this book is chock-full of extraneous detail, and verbiage.

infidelity is SO boring- and I can't respect an adult who doesn't foresee the obvious consequences, like their kids going to live with the ex

latest offender: occiput. Mr. Hallberg's diction is out. of. control.

more breasts/produce imagery

"nerdle"? really? and not even- it's nUrdle. anyway, sometimes I finish books just to see if they really are anything. just about to that point with this one.

at times it feels like he's checking off requirements for an ambitious novel: race, check. abortion, check. very little, save some passages of description, feels unique.

feeling a breast: "like an avocado he was testing for ripeness". yeah, no. practically the very definition of rote.

this many pages in, if the story has a thesis it's "everything is connected" and that is too weak a sauce to render this many words more than merely palatable.

ooh, a DFW reference.

Like New York City itself, Mr. Hallberg seems to regard mercilessness is a virtue.

The chapters are too short, and there's too many of them. Probably 100 extra pages what with all the breaks.

the amount of detail he's able to conjure is astonishing

the amount of detail he's able to conjure is astonishing

1/3 of the way through and I'm pretty sure 20% of this thing should be pared away. Steak riddled with a lot of gristle.

first appearance of the second interesting character

the snapshots of the city are absolutely fantastic- and completely at odds with the overarching narrative.

"propinquity"?? these characters wouldn't talk this way. so who's telling this story? Mr. Hallberg hovers around my shoulder like a drunk mosquito.

Mr. Hallberg has a big vocabulary, and no shortage of verbiage... but I'm still waiting for the telling to compel.

"the florilegia magnetized to the fridge." Riiiiiight.

900+ pages of shaggy-dog, eh?

900+ pages of shaggy-dog, eh?

Fascinating, unexpected... a thousand stories still in search of A Story.