You mean Travball.

That innings was something a bit special.

Thanks! A late addition to the review.

Also, it’s a Western and follows the conventions of the Western—the outsider, the posse, the showdown, a deep love of horses—but in unexpected ways. In short: it’s a novel that’s harking back to storytelling of old—both the Western and the epic.

You’ll know within 50 pages. I read a converted PDF copy where every fi word had the “i” missing and it didn’t slow me down. But not everyone likes the folksy voice. The book reads as a response to the cynicism is contemporary fiction.

Yep, I loved it. Big hearted, sentimental novel. Won’t be for everyone.

I really didn’t like Flashlight. Found it ponderous and the mystery was clear to me from the outset. Liked Flesh more than you did. I really enjoyed Audition, has a Lynchian quality which I jive with. Read later in an interview that Lynch was an inspiration.

Not read it myself, but heard only good things about it.

Wrote this rather popular book: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tra...

HA! X 2.

I was literally reading it, or finishing it when you posted the above. It’s a novel about strange coincidences and ghostly forces and here you go posting a review while I’m finishing my long, long, long horse ride.

Fair enough.

Possibly. There will definitely be curio value. I gave it second and third thoughts about reviewing it. And I think anyone who sees its massive girth in a bookstore is either going to be a fan or someone helped along by a great review.

I got into the rhythm of it.

Tom back his hat and gave him a hand up too, how the new kid showed no concern over the abuse he’d just taken and would likely have taken more of if Tom hadn’t chosen on that Tuesday afternoon, April 13 to be exact, to walk home by way of Willow and Oak instead of takin Ninth straight to Briar.

Here’s a snippet:

Now even Tom, who was pretty nimble hisself, would never have thought to stand tall with Lindsey chargin him like a bull blind on rage. And maybe it was this boy’s stolidity that quieted Tom’s own cachinnations some, Tom noticin what Lindsey kept missin even as Lindsey handed

HA! I’m not expecting many people to buy it or read it, especially if the LARB review is any indication. It’s a 20 day investment at 67 pages or 30,000 words or 2 hours a day. I loved it but you could read it five books in the same time.

My review for Locus will be a third of the length. (Though longer than my normal stuff because it is fucking huge and I want to get some critical value for my money).

The cult audience is you and me and people who read House of Leaves. This isn’t that. It’s a maximalist novel, and while as the LARB point out, there’s some reflexive “modernist” stuff in it, it’s not a difficult read (unless you find the folksy voice difficult, where enough if spelt enuf).