This is one of those books where, when you've finished, you'll flip back to page one without meaning to, trying to catch whatever it is you must have missed at the start, a hint in the opening lines at the fastball to the face to come. It is a 442 page howl of rage, but Thomas writes like de Chirico paints, his brush strokes invisible, his poetry effortless. He also appears to have read the entire Western canon, then distilled it into an angry screed against most everything. The results would be unendurable if they weren't so unexpected.
It's a story about New York, about loneliness and loss and identity, about race and sex and the trouble with potential, about losing your voice or never having one, about taking what was never anyone's to give. It is also about construction work and playing golf with people you hate. It will make you feel a lot of feelings, almost none of them good. After it ends, if you are me, you will have to lie upside-down with your head hanging off the sofa for a little while before your mind goes back to normal. If you are a writer, or black, or male, or a person, it will make you question most of what you thought you knew.
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