Matthew Battles on Centuries of June

Matthew Battles reviews Centuries of June: A Novel at The Barnes & Noble Review and offers what feels a little like a backhanded compliment:

Donohue manages the dream logic well, modulating registers from one mystery muse to the next with mostly-subtle shifts in dialect and voice. When the key to the puzzle finally is disclosed, however, the answer is an obvious one, and a bit of a new-age, pop-psych let-down, lacking the intellectual crackle of Borges and the tooth-gnashing comedy of Beckett–qualities this seductively irreal novel seems to want to foster. And yet there’s a satisfaction in the telling, and in the notion that stories find their resonances even across the generational tides of forgetting, that ultimately the tale is the only transcendent force we can bring to bear against death and its savage requitals.

Piqued my interest nonetheless, think I might check this one out.

Kevin Holtsberry
I work in communications and public affairs. I try to squeeze in as much reading as I can while still spending time with my wife and two kids (and cheering on the Pittsburgh Steelers and Michigan Wolverines during football season).

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