(December 2015)
Oh, wow. This shouldn’t have taken me so
nearly as long to finish as it did. Nothing to do with the book, sadly, which
deserved much more concentration than I was
able to give it, but such is life.
You’ll recall my many gushing
tributes to
Newman’s
Ice Cream Star, so it was
frankly unfair to read this when I clearly couldn’t give it my full attention.
This means I’ll have to gloss over the plot (of which there really isn’t one
anyway, so no great loss there) and the characters (which is more of a problem)
and just say that Newman’s ability with “non-standard” English is genuinely
entrancing. For all the grimness of the content matter (incest, child abuse,
murder: the fun is endless), the main character’s idiolect is gloriously,
vitally real. Massive triggers all over the shop, but if you can deal with that
then the linguistic virtuosity on display here is absolutely worth more of your
time then I could offer. Also, y’know…
cake.
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