

Beatty is ferociously funny and uncomfortably right. The absurdity never feels cheap — every joke is doing serious work. Dickens appearing on the weather map at the end genuinely got me. Dense, demanding, and worth every page. Docking one star because some stretches made me feel like I was missing half the references — but maybe that’s the point.
Beatty is ferociously funny and uncomfortably right. The absurdity never feels cheap — every joke is doing serious work. Dickens appearing on the weather map at the end genuinely got me. Dense, demanding, and worth every page. Docking one star because some stretches made me feel like I was missing half the references — but maybe that’s the point.