Ilya Martynov Martynov itibaren Bhatda, West Bengal, India itibaren Bhatda, West Bengal, India

Oh, man. Do you see how I couldn't really recommend this book to anybody, despite the fact that I voted it five stars? That's because I genuinely felt haunted by some of the enclosed stories. Now, let's think about that for a second: "haunted." What that means, basically, is that I felt like the stories were inside of me and that I really, really wished that they weren't there. Especially the title story, which is hands down the most powerful piece of written-word language ever to wrack my psyche. So recommending this to people really feels a lot like recommending that movie from _The Ring_, or whatever, except not a bad rip-off of a questionably good Japanese source. And besides, with all the psychological depth available to a gifted writer like Wallace, his epiphanies (and each story in here is a wonderfully fresh take on the epiphanic story structure; most are brilliantly successful) deliver way more immediacy and power than the vast, vast majority of films I have ever seen. Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are stories of horror and terror that not only shame Hollywood, but also shame our own Hollywood-ed ideas about horror and terror. If I could offer an honest -- if not exactly humble -- prediction, it would be that this will be recognized for the finest post-9/11 material published, fiction and non-fiction.

This is the book I usually recommend as an introduction to Saul Bellow. It's definitely the most accessible, and it's said to have been the author's own favorite creation.