Sometimes a book is so inventive, so interesting and capable and creative, that you have to put it down, walk around, take a deep breath, have a beer, and think about things. The book can challenge your idea of what it means to be a fiction writer. And these books tend to make you a little mad; you grapple through them—captivated but enlivened—reminded that there are different ways of doing things, ways you hadn’t imagined.
