While I enjoyed reading parts of this book, and the author's literary technique was quite good in places, in the end I felt there were too many ideas and characters (and just plain "stuff") crammed into it. It was like a cow's mouth and, for that reason, hard to take. For me, Dominick's grandfather was a terrible role model (even if you accept the idea that his was a "confessional" memoir which I had trouble doing).

There is entirely too much violence contained in this book in an ambivalent or concealed way. It is essential in the present state of our society that violence should be unambiguously and unequivocally condemned and denounced, not played around with in a way that is partly an aggrandizement, partly a hidden endorsement, and partly comical.

For example, it wasn't at all clear to me that Tempesta's desire for "forgiveness" and to "come clean" was sincere, but, rather that he was arrogant, boastful and just the opposite of penitent.

Many other aspects of the book seemed to contribute to what Dominick's therapist might call a "bifurcated" (or mixed) comprehension (perhaps purposely done by the author but still in poor taste in my book).

This is because, to my mind, tongue-in-cheek mixed messages involving violence to women (i.e., to the Monkey--hunted down like a criminal and precipitiously incarcerated in a mental hospital for attempting to protect Tempesta's wife who
was ultimately driven to suicide--almost killing her own daughter Constantine in the process) are in poor taste (no matter how concealed behind a veil of grandiose "literary" achievement).

Many other books I have read in fact show lesbianism (Tempesta's finding the Monkey and his wife together in bed) as a credible outcome of a socially underwritten code of male chauvinism and arrogance that has no mercy.

After all, who do oppressed and persecuted women have to turn to if not each other?

In conclusion it is easy to say that "mongrels make good dogs," etc. and that "love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness," but actions speak louder than words, and I have the distinct feeling that if, by some miracle,Tempesta, Dominick (or even, maybe especially, Ray) were given the opportunity to live their lives again less violently or oppressively that they would flunk the test hands down and be supremely incapable of ever doing so.

Although it was somewhat of a fun read, this dishonest aspect ultimately turned the book into just a lot of double-talk and empty words for me, no comparison whatsoever to Dostoevsky.