Davide Gianese Gianese itibaren Hanzhong, Shaanxi, Çin itibaren Hanzhong, Shaanxi, Çin

Fairly completxly woven story of the inmates of a Maine orphanage, there Dr. Larch delivers babies and mothers. You get an orphan or an abortion. He raises one boy, Homer Wells, to be an obstetrician, even though the boy gets no medical degrees. Homer leaves with a couple his age and falls in love. He's gone for almost twenty years, dealing with his song and the people he loves, before finally returning to the orphanage to take over "the Lord's work". Deals with who makes the rules (everyone for themselves) and breaking them.

Bret Easton Ellis is doing a lot of interesting technical things in this book. His lists, his chapters dedicated to '80s music, his (now almost mythic) unreliable narrator. However, the books revels in its own gratuity; it may have worked better if it were half its current length. It also seems to be a kind of nihilistic satire; beyond commenting on how bleak society was in the 1980s, it doesn't seem to be doing much.

Simply the greatest thing I have ever read. Endlessly re-readable, endlessly quotable, deep yet accessible. Sublime. Read it at school and every couple of years since.

After the author died, a friend recommended this wonderful book. The illustrator is one of my favorites too!