I had heard about this book and this author, and figured I would get around to reading it. What prompted me to actually buy it was the coupon from Borders I received for reviewing the first four chapters.These first chapters were intriguing. I naturally thought the whole book was going to be like this - a unique combination of various genres. Being of Eastern European Jewish descent myself, I looked forward to a lot of the Jewish in-jokes other reviewers have mentioned.Unfortunately, as others have also mentioned, the tone became as dreary as the weather, and there was virtually no payoff to plodding through to the end.I will defintely read his other works. They all can't be winners.