Helpful Score: 1
This early effort of Russell Banks was not for me. In fact, if I'd run into it first I would never had read anything else by him. Pretentious, false, and posturing - it's a hard slog. The three tales in the book are quite different in mood, changing from a fake, overly arch fairy tale to what Banks may have considered deeply personal lit and character study. I found everything tedious except the pages which were devoted to a title or chapter heading.
