John Dunn

I was disappointed. This is what the Germans call a Bildungsroman, a novel of development and maturing. Unfortunately there is little development and maturing on the part of the protagonist in the first 100 pages, which is where I put it aside. The period in which this novel is set - the Great Depression, WWII, postwar America, Mexico, the Red Scares - is full of possibility, but the characters who move through the first 100 pages are not. There seemed no reason to go on. This was particularly disappointing because I had just finished her novel THE PRODIGAL SUMMER before I picked this up. That is a wonderful book.