Erik Pratt

On a first glance at the jacket and even a few of the short chapters in this seems like a story you might have read or at least one that you think you have. The longer you read the more you realize how wrong that thought is. At some point I realized I could never have conceived the mechanics of this novel. At no point did I feel this novel was hard to follow, easily falling into the rythms of Journeyman's life. Yet, I also never felt I had any idea what was going to happen next. Often, literally no idea--just adrift in a story I absolutely had to keep reading without any clear idea of why. Hopeful and sad. Filled with comfortable and familiar ideas in a decidedly uncomfortable and unfamiliar story. My initial reaction upon finishing this novel was, "I've rarely felt like this about a story's end." A bit similar to the feeling I had finishing Emily St John Mandel's "Station Eleven. " I'm gonna stew on this one for a long time.