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Jul 30, 2017wyenotgo rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This is a book that will definitely try your patience. Had I not previously read "All the Light We Cannot See", and been totally sold on Anthony Doerr I might well have given up on this one after about 240 pages. Winkler the protagonist is delusional, neurotic, ineffectual, self-destructive. He drifts into an affair with a married woman, flees in panic when his family is threatened by a flood, buys a used car and travels all around the USA without bothering about a driver's license or insurance, comes perilously close to killing himself at least three times. His life is a dreary odyssey in which he displays neither the craftiness of Odysseus nor the courage of Telemachus. He's a klutz. So why do I give such a tale of woe 4 stars? I suppose because of the superb writing that somehow kept me from putting it down. And in the end, this is a story about redemption, about forgiveness, about being connected to those we love despite everything: lost years, broken promises, foolish mistakes. Having presented us with such a deeply flawed protagonist, Doerr makes up for it by giving us several superb secondary characters -- Naaliyah, Christopher, Felix are all wonderfully drawn and each in their own way are part of Winkler's salvation.