I've read all of Russo's books. I graduated from Nathan Littauer Nursing School in 1952 so these people are well known to me. It was 150 pages too long. Where are the editors? Four of the highly publicized,prize winning books that I want to read are over 500 pages in length. Too much of a good thing-daunting! My favorite Russo book is "Straight Man". It was a welcome departure from his usual,barfly/good guy at heart. Does it occur to him sometimes that the reason small-town America is disappearing is because it is peopled by characters like the people in his books.

I was astounded that BookBrowse recommended this book. I think it was a very "thin" book. Perhaps 12 to 14 year old readers would enjoy it as beach reading but adults would be sorely disappointed.