The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge

 

There were several times reading this that I gave serious thought to putting it down and getting on with my evening, but I figured I'd keep going in case the novel every managed (or maybe bothered) to pay of its premise. I should have stopped, and spared myself the unending digressions pointlessly spiraling into pomo inanity about the impossibility of facts; then an ending that's really more like a stop. In between, La Farge manages to mimic Lovecraft at his least readable and the sludgy prose of a shrinkologist who can't get out of her own head without ever managing to demonstrate that he can write prose that is actually pleasant to read.