The Singer's Gun

I loved it. Every incomprehensible incident, every strange and slightly familiar event. It felt like part thriller (pace and suspense) and part literary memoir and part meditation on loneliness and the difficulty of connecting with other people. A pleasure, and more Mandel in my future.

This is like Mandel's other novels in the lyricism of the writing and the unforgettable characters, but the overall feeling is notably tense, angrier. So far it is maybe my least favorite of her books, but it was still quite good and I'm still chewing on it.

I was a bit harsh in my last review, and here I've just finished another of her books just days later. Mandel's characters are flawed, but allthemore life-like for it. As readers, we still root for them, because they're human beings, and they deserve to get a happy ending. Except for Aria, of course.