by Patrick deWitt I’m a fan of Patrick deWitt. (I don’t think I’ve kept this a secret.) So naturally I was tickled pink when I heard he had a new book out. And, hearing it consistently described as something of a “tragedy of manners,” I wasn’t particularly surprised. Given what I saw as parallels to…
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by Patrick deWitt Well, this one was a doozy. I really don’t know what I was expecting going into this book, but, after reading The Sisters Brothers and Undermajordomo Minor, it sure caught me by surprise. And I kind of wish I was a bit prepared for a story as depressing as Ablutions turned out…
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by Patrick deWitt When, in reading, I come across outlandish fantasies or nightmares relating to the plot, I often enjoy them immensely. I think back to Vonnegut’s Der Arme Dolmetscher: The protagonist’s heroic fantasy, made up with only the limited German phrases that he knew, absolutely made that story. In Gogol’s Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and…
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