The author very kindly sent me a copy of this novel to read without any expectation from me. I finished reading it in October and posted my review... or so I thought. It has seemingly disappeared so I am going to post an abbreviated review because I feel it is the least the author deserves for his kindness.

The good:

Amazingly inventive, dark, surreal, intriguing, intelligent, captivating in bursts, tantalising, absurd, so very absurd...

The bad:

Long, very long, too much aimless dialogue, characters seem to be speaking with the author's voice a lot of the time, after the first quarter the plot is neglected in favour of (overly caricaturised) character development.

I enjoyed the first quarter thoroughly, I loved the Kafkaesque surrealism, I loved the elastic prose, I especially loved the way the author played with the words and phrases and idioms, imbuing them with a playful wit.

However, it was too long, at least by half. This book would have garnered 4 stars from me, easily, if most of the aimless dialogue and musings had been excised, and certain characters were treated with a bit more gravity.

I look forward to the second book in the series (of seven, apparently) and will gladly review it. ( )

This is a good premise, but ...I believe it has too many idioms and they're not very good.. example.. "the force of recollection punched him in the nose.." "Both were dressed to make a point no man could understand without consulting a dictionary that was dedicated to superlatives.." They go on and on, and I believe that this would have been a much more compelling read without them. They tend to cloud the story, and detract from it. There is definitely beautiful prose inside, but its buried.The primary character is interesting and compelling, and you identify with him right off the bat, but unfortunately, you don't get enough of him. ( )

This is a good premise, but ...I believe it has too many idioms and they're not very good.. example.. "the force of recollection punched him in the nose.." "Both were dressed to make a point no man could understand without consulting a dictionary that was dedicated to superlatives.." They go on and on, and I believe that this would have been a much more compelling read without them. They tend to cloud the story, and detract from it. There is definitely beautiful prose inside, but its buried.The primary character is interesting and compelling, and you identify with him right off the bat, but unfortunately, you don't get enough of him. ( )

Well, I am surprised this got so many positive reviews for a book that is a whopping 492 pages. I could have really enjoyed this at about half that. Not only is the book a thick monster, the writing is dense and long winded. I love the idea of the story; truly. I love the veiled mystery behind the hangman's job, the cultural importance, and the significance of what it means for the family, but I still can't get through all of the extra nonsense to whittle down to the great story underneath all this with what we have. ( )

The book started out really good and I was enjoying it until about midway when it just started getting confusing. Introducing characters that were only there for a moment and gone and not really adding anything to the story except confusion. To me it seemed to lose its way from what the book was suppose to be about. Either that or I just missed the point. ( )