Beautifully written--you cannot escape this book without becoming engrossed in the author's love for words. There are so many lines that are so delicious you must keep them in your quote file. The book as a whole is a tangled web of mysteries and separate stories that in the end, finally become lovingly intertwined. This book is sumptuous in its words and full-bodied characters. I did at times, however, grow tired of the skipping around from one story to the next. Perhaps part of that was my eagerness to find out which story was the "real" story. Viewing it now as a "whole" I would recommend this book--but only for those who savor words for the pure pleasure of their beauty. Without that, you may have trouble hanging on to the end.
