Joshua TiltonTiltonitibarenKepulauan Sula Regency, North Maluku, IndonesiaitibarenKepulauan Sula Regency, North Maluku, Indonesia

I have never cringed so much while reading a book. And I don't mean cheap cringes like you'd get from reading about an awkward adolescence, I mean serious, serious shrinking of the soul, some of it sympathetic and some not. What a horrific setup for a hugely cathartic ending. Nothing can match Bird's surreal and overblown fear of the "monstrous" infant or his self-loathing, so the ending is marked not by happiness and resolution but by a return to normalcy. Of sorts.