His best. Ever. ( )

Powerful and very different from the Bascombe novels, Ford experiments with structure. ( )

Aburrida y poco realista. ( )

I've read a number of Ford's previous novels and thoroughly enjoyed them, and was therefore really surprised by just how much this one bored me. The novel was told from the point of view of a whiney 15 year old boy with major self esteem issues and he just went on and on and on, in minute detail, with his sad little musings on life. A story with bank robberies, abandoned children, and murders should be compelling but as told from the point of view of this 15 year old, it was just plain Boring. ( )

A fine novel. Perhaps his best. His usual themes. Well-constructed, clever imagery - chess, mirrored characters, twins, national borders, the nature of criminality, etc. A mild negative - the author doesn't say anything merely twice.
I've been thinking about this novel and it occurred to me that Canada is used in somewhat the same way as Cormac McCarthy uses Mexico. When the characters cross the border they seem to be more "somewhere else" than they would be in reality. So there can be a dream-like quality, or a purgatory-like quality or the author can push his characters to extremes or amplify his symbolism or imagery. This might explain Jingles in Boofland, which, as you know, came from Windsor. ( )