With the hope of countering my tendencies to avoid most "new" fiction I purchased this book thinking I could be proven wrong; to be shown that most literature that enters the marketplace in the 21st century is not a thoughtless waste of time. The first 60 or so pages of this book had promise, but then it revealed itself to be a forced, semi-imaginative and uninspired mass of pages. I feel somewhat bad for saying this but it cannot be helped. Instead I picked up "The Goalies Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" by Peter Handke, which is a tidy, superior and exceptional novel. Sorry Tom.