A review by kimchifairy
Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren

A novel that's met with some quite strange comparisons; it's a cavernous epic of family and intellectual life, reminiscent of, say, On Beauty or The Corrections, but which makes both of them seem petty and sophomoric. The philosophical and the everyday churn slowly, perfectly around each other until, in the last hundred pages or so, the desperate sadness at their centre lurches devastatingly into frame. Astonishingly good; one of the best debut novels I've ever read.