Reviews

Canaan's Tongue by John Wray

emilybryk's review against another edition

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3.0

it's hard to say what I thought about this book. the first 50 pages or so were excellent -- the tone is dark and mythic and biblical and hypnotic. however, by the end it loses its mind and turns into a weird southern kaballah story, featuring possession (maybe) and a the-crying-game-style twist we all saw coming from midway through.

alanfederman's review

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4.0

This was a gothic and grotesque book about a gang of outlaws around the time of the U.S. civil war. It had many Faulkner-esque touches (multiple points of view, stream of consciousness, violent deaths), but far more accessible. The one down side was the kabala-like mysticism (not my cup of tea), but otherwise a great book.

As a side note, I picked this book up after reading another John Wray novel, "Lowboy" which was fantastic. This was an earlier novel and it's great to see each book getting better.
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