Processed Cheese by Stephen Wright

 

This was nearly 400 pages of an author trying to be clever and hyperbolically wacky and being ... tedious. I kept on to the end in the vain hope something interesting would happen, or that something like a point to the whole thing would emerge. It's possible this is something brilliant on the lines of Pynchon or DeLillo--I've never read any DeLillo and what I've seen of Pynchon hasn't made me want to read more--but honestly it really seemed like a pretty competent novelist trying to do a thing and failing.

My Darkest Prayer by S. A. Cosby

 

A beautiful novel of violence, vengeance and pain, set against a backdrop of small-town bigotry. If you see this, or *Razorblade Tears*, take the motherfucker home with you. I'll let you know about *All the Sinners Bleed* once I've read it.