This was my first experience reading Percival Everett, and I'm impressed with his writing style. The protagonist is a self-described grumpy, blunt loner, but I found myself liking him, anyway. The main subject of the book is quite sad, and Zach Wells, the aforementioned grumpy protagonist and geology professor, has various coping mechanisms for facing what is happening in personal life, one of them quite daring.

There are three slightly different versions of this novel, which made it an interesting choice for our small book discussion group. Why did the author go with different ways to end this? Perhaps to see if it affected the way we felt about the story. Or perhaps it's an artistic device that is beyond me. Actually, I did get the feeling that I was missing things, but I still enjoyed the story, which was well-paced.

I would definitely read another Percival Everett book.