The Lesser Bohemians

Ah, where to begin?

Let’s be odd and start with the beginning. It takes several pages before you get into the rhythm of Eimear McBride’s use of stream-of-consciousness, but once you do, it flows into your brain with little need to translate. There are staccato-type passages and passages that

Show More

echo with true poetry.

That’s the first barrier to getting into The Lesser Bohemians. The next one would be the actions and the thoughts of the characters. Think: seedy, grim, desolate. There’s the need to hurt out of revenge or to hurt out of hurt, to inflict damage. There’s the seeming absolute worst things that you could inflict on another person. There’s darkness and despondency. There’s grimness and physical pain and ugly addictions.

But, there’s also hope and love and light. Nothing is easy, but sometimes you reap the rewards and find love and the hope of happiness. There are good people who will help you when you are at your lowest. There are those who are loyal to you, who will support you. There’s reaching out and caring, even if you think that in the morning, you will still leave and be cold.

These are the things that I take away from The Lesser Bohemians. It’s not an easy book to read due to its style and subject matter, but I think it was well worth the investment of time because it left me thinking and feeling.

I realize that this is not the normal type of review I usually provide you with, but this is my reaction to what I read.

For more concrete, let me say that Eilis, the 18-year old, and Stephen, the actor, are fully realized characters whose backgrounds you learn through monologues and dialogue. Stephen’s story is particularly dark, filled with addictions of all types, but now he is clean and living a compartmentalized life. Eilis obviously doesn’t have much history, but she has not been untouched. What seems like it should only be a one nighter becomes more, something powerful and unforgettable.

I received an ARC from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

Show Less

4.5 Stars.
On first pass, it is tempting to imagine Eimear McBride’s second book as an alternate (happier?) ending of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. Had the unnamed narrator escaped her fate, perhaps she too would have spent her days strolling the streets of London, taking up acting as a means of

Show More

trying on new, other-, or less-damaged selves. There are lots of common threads between McBride’s first and second novels to tug on, particularly for fans of the first. Stylistically, each book presents an unnamed* first-person (female) narrator’s “pre-conscious thoughts,” and each pulses (throbs, really) with the similarly truncated poetic-grammatical rhythm of those thoughts. Thematically, they overlap in many arenas, most notably with regards to McBride’s trenchant--often disturbingly unflinching--presentation of the psychosexual formation of Self. Specifically, each novel offers a glimpse into the (de)formation of those who find themselves poorly situated in (often criminally) unequal relationships. Tempting as it is to continue to draw parallels, I’d rather focus on how TLB differs from GHFT, which I believe it does in significant and interesting ways.
The Lesser Bohemians might have been titled A Man is a Half-Formed Person, as McBride’s books form a sort of asymmetrical brace. I’m interested in this asymmetry. While both books are narrated by young women, the first is addressed to the You of the narrator’s sick brother, and LB’s narrator moves between London’s unfamiliar streets and scenes, feeling herself more “eye” than “I.” As a young “eye” she sees and hears more of the bump-and-chatter of her world than GHFT’s narrator who--in response to her inability to escape the trauma of her body--digs ever further into it, seeking trauma out as a means to control it. So if GHFT necessitated inwardness, LB requires it much less so. The “eye” of the novel is freer to explore others’ stories. And boy, does McBride allow them to speak candidly in their own voices to our ever watchful & listening young experimenter. This is how we come to encounter the middle-aged actor that is to become our 18-year-old aspiring thespian’s love interest. This is also how the novel becomes his--i.e. a Man’s--story. A story that is excavated and uncovered over the course of a tumultuous year, and will reveal him to be--like most of us--a person half-formed. Significantly, GHFT’s narrator couldn’t break away from neither her girlhood nor her thinghood, while the Man of LB has reached maturity and is thereby entitled to “personhood” status. Nevertheless, both girl and man are maimed, stunted, and half-formed by the trauma they’ve endured and in some cases inflicted. Taking the first and second novels together, McBride has given us a more complete(ly devastating) picture of the multitude ways sexual abuse (and patriarchy) affects persons regardless of gender.

*(Very small) SPOILER: It is significant (IMO) that no characters are named in LB until the last third of the novel. I take this to be McBride’s way of solidifying them, or demonstrating their own solid understanding of themselves and of each other. Those keen to compare McBride to Joyce will have fun with the names, the perambulation around 1990s London, and of course little literary nods like: “River run running to a northern sea.”

Show Less

You’ll have trouble with this book. I did. About page 40, I wondered, “is she ever going to write in complete sentences?” About page 90, I thought, “is it ever going to be about anything but sex?” The answer to both these questions was “almost never.” But The Lesser Bohemians is much

Show More

more than a literary 50 Shades. And I’m glad I didn’t give up on it.
Ireland native McBride won the Bailey’s Women’s Prize and many, many other accolades for her 2013 book, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, and when I saw she’d written another one, I jumped at the chance to read it.
In Bohemians, released last month, an 18-year-old Irish girl—a drama student in London—meets meets an older man, a handsome actor near 40. She isn’t a virgin much longer. There’s a lot of sex, a lot of cigarettes, a lot of alcohol. We don’t even learn these characters’ names until very far along. He’s Stephen, he calls her Eily. Her full name, her real name, Eílís, is used only once, two pages from the end, when their identity is finally clear to each other and themselves, perhaps. Their urgent and scouring intimacy is McBride’s way of flaying any falseness from the characters and laying them (literally) bare.
The story approaches somewhat closer to a conventional first-person narrative (sentences!) in the second half, in a long section in which Stephen tells her about his past, a true heart-breaker there. Most of it is written in almost a stream-of-consciousness way, and McBride is often compared to James Joyce for that reason. Conversations are presented in long paragraphs, uninterrupted by such reader-aids as quotation marks, but once I got into it, I didn’t have much trouble following. Emphasizing the difficulty of it risks underpraising how mesmerizing it is. McBride’s approach forces you to slow down and really absorb what’s being said, as she fractures the rules of punctuation and grammar. As NPR reviewer Annalisa Quinn said, “By sacrificing grammatical precision she gets emotional and psychological sense—even as those things are in themselves impossibly and inherently imprecise, like light or color.” Or love, I’d add. A sample:
On that said Saturday, she (Eily’s friend) helps me move into the (friend’s ex-boyfriend’s) flat. Tired white walls. No curtains or blinds. But perfect. Landlady free. The I hope you’re proud of yourself, ringing in my ears and lug my stuff from the Safeway’s trolley I nicked and pushed down to Patshull Road. I think I’ll blank him, she decides. Fair enough, I say, blu-tacking Betty Blue up. I pity you, he’s such an--. Keep it down, I live here now. I bet he shags you before the term is out. I wouldn’t.
Conventionally, this would be handled something like this:
On that said Saturday, she helps me move into the flat. Tired white walls. No curtains or blinds. But perfect. Landlady free. The “I hope you’re proud of yourself,” ringing in my ears and lug my stuff from the Safeway’s trolley I nicked and pushed down to Patshull Road.
“I think I’ll blank him,” she decides.
“Fair enough,” I say, blu-tacking Betty Blue up.
“I pity you, he’s such an--.”
“ Keep it down, I live here now.”
“ I bet he shags you before the term is out.”
“I wouldn’t.”
This is an unforgettable book about two characters I came to really care about. I can picture their lives and prospects and I appreciate an author who doesn’t believe she has to make my job as a reader too easy.

Show Less

I wonder how many books I've wanted to not rate.
If the publisher had even hinted at the nature of the writing, I would not have requested it.
Joyce and e.e. cummings can get away with non standard English, but I humbly suggest McBride is not yet in their class despite winning a plethora of awards

Show More

for her first book.
I am curious to read other reviews.

Show Less

When I first started reading this book, I found it very difficult going. The experimental writing style initially hampered my ability to enjoy the story as I generally favor more traditional grammatical conventions and, um…punctuation! I stuck with it though, and after not too many pages, found

Show More

that there was a true poetical sense to the writing and after falling into its rhythm, I became intrigued by the story of the young Irish girl who has fallen for the older, damaged man. By the end of the book, I was very glad to have continued reading despite my tepid enthusiasm for it at the beginning. It turned out to be a beautiful story of love, forgiveness, and new chances. While Eily has her own past to sort through, the full revelation of Stephen’s disturbing, horrible childhood, addiction, and damage wrought by Marianne gives the story a solid emotional punch. It’s not a book that everyone will love and I wouldn’t put it on a list of books that I try to convince friends they “must read.” However, if stream-of-consciousness writing doesn’t put you off, then you may very well love the story here.

Show Less

This book read like word salad. I couldn't even get beyond the first few pages. It took way too much concentration to even try to understand the point of what was being said, and even when I concentrated hard, I still didn't really get it. It's written like poetry, I guess, which is something I

Show More

could never get into. Unless you are into really unusual writing styles, avoid this book.

Show Less

Well, that was a bit of a chore. Obviously, it took me a long time to read this (though I did only read 20 pages or so at night before sleeping). I really don't like books without chapters - the anxiety in me craves a natural stopping point. This is also written in strange prose - there are no

Show More

quotation marks, the tenses are often odd, sentences are fragmentary, etc. I'm all for experimenting with literature, but it often comes off as gimmicky rather than necessary to the story. I couldn't have even told you the main character's names until at least halfway through the novel. Just odd.

I received an advance reader's copy of this, via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

Show Less

I loved the premise of this book - young girl spends a year at drama school in London. However I just couldn't get past the strange writing style. I don't want to say this is a bad book, but it for sure wasn't for me.

The Lesser Bohemians is the story of an 18 year-old Irish girl/woman's first year in acting school in London. We occupy her head and follow her consciousness through the whole book. As other readers have commented, this is something of a challenge but not enough to stop a person who's willing to

Show More

read on without pinning down every single thought. We hear conversation as she does and participate in her replies with no quotation marks or change of paragraph or any other conventional help. At first, I thought that this was gimmicky, and that I was not going to be able to put up with it. I cared enough about the characters though to keep going and eventually appreciated McBride's ability to build in levels of consciousness......for example, fleeting, usually uneasy thoughts, are printed in much smaller font size than the main flow.
Our narrator is thrilled to be in London and soon meets a much older man (20 years older, we later learn) with whom she sleeps to lose her virginity and then whom she loves. We read lots and lots and lots of sex, and for the first part of the book, when the two are not having sex, the young woman is thinking about sex. We don't know her name until rather late in the book when she and we learn what is behind the older man's problems. When she knows herself, we are able to put a name on her. When he knows himself, we can put a name on him.
It's hard to say that a book with so much sex and such a searing description of sexual child abuse is a fairy tale, but I promise that it is.
Thank you, Early Reviewers for the opportunity to read this one!

Show Less

Oh man. I am trying so, so hard to get through this book. I really want to like it-but this writing style.....it's tough.
Sometimes it works. Mostly I can't get into it. Almost every time it seemed like it was reading naturally, there would be some abrupt change or some sentence that jangled

Show More

horribly and interrupted the flow. I'd go back and reread the sentence. Then I'd read the paragraph again. Then, I would put the book down.
Maybe it's just my love of language and grammar holding me back. I have read other sentence fragment/stream of consciousness/free flowing books though-and haven't had this much difficulty. I could maybe even deal with most of the writing if there weren't spaces, just extra spaces, in the middle of sentences.

"In England she's in Canada with her mother.Oh you must miss her..."
It doesn't add to the mood. It just seems like sloppy writing.

I NEED a new book right now-and I haven't finished this one. Yikes. I am close enough to done that I can review this and it doesn't matter how it ends-my review will not be more positive.
An advance copy of this book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review- and it hurts me to negatively review this. :(

Show Less

I really could not get into this book. The writing style is so hard to get through. I felt like I was in college again trying to read a book that was assigned to me and it just makes it that much harder to read. I really don't think stream of consciousness style writing is for me and I'm a little

Show More

bit surprised that people are still rating this one so high. I guess I just like punctuation and full sentences too much to get on board with this book.

Show Less

I loved this book. The writing style took me a bit to get used to, but once I did, it was really amazing. It is written in a similar way to how a young person might think. The descriptions of sex were erotic and I found myself reading sections of the book to my partner. The middle part takes a

Show More

dark/disturbing turn, but I enjoyed the whole book immensely.

Show Less

This book started off being a difficult read due to the sentence structure utilized by the author. The sentences were half finished and written in a stream of consciousness mode and it was hard to follow. I almost gave up hope of finishing the book but continued on. Eventually, the book became more

Show More

flowing and readable and I could not put it down The characters were well developed and the prose was descriptive and I was able to follow it. The book described the relationship between two actors with twenty years age difference between them. However they had both suffered trauma in their lives and this story describes how they learned to cope with their trauma together while living and working in the acting field. Ms. McBride is a talented and creative writer and I look forward to reading more of her work. I highly recommend this book.

Show Less

After reading the synopsis of The Lesser Bohemians, I was very excited to read this book. Yet, after struggling to finish it I am almost at a loss for words. The writing style made it so difficult to follow the story. I found myself rereading paragraphs, sometimes three times, and then asking

Show More

myself, “Is this what the author meant?” I just did not get it.

I adore books and anything bookish; so, to say I didn’t like something is huge for me. I liked the story line and nothing else and that is the ONLY reason why I am giving it three stars. I think I can sum it up by saying, it is not my cup of tea. The critics might disagree.

I received an Early Reviewers copy from LibraryThing in exchange for my honest review.

Show Less

In the words of Eimear McBride, this is a book for serious readers who want to be challenged. The first half of the book is very stream-of-conscious from the narrator's point of view. Words and thoughts that flow into each other. Paragraphs that run for pages. Little to no punctuation. No formal

Show More

names until the last pages of the book - just the Flatmate, the Actor, etc. Much has been written about her unique style, and many find it off putting. McBride points to James Joyce's Ulysses as inspiration for her writing; it reminded me of Faulkner as well. But once you accept the style, the story pulls you in. It takes place over a school term in London in 1994-95 as a young 18-year-old acting student from Ireland meets and falls for a 38-year-old famous actor. Both have troubled pasts that lead them to terrible decisions. There is a lot of drinking and smoking that pales in comparison to the amount of sex - in a variety of forms. But at heart, it is a book on the importance of forgiveness and the importance of relationships.

And while the writing style did not put me off, I did find it strange that half-way through the book as we are getting Stephen's back story, McBride switched to a more conventional style and never full switched back to the stream of consciousness.

Is this an easy read? No Is it a quick read? No Is it worth it? Most definitely, if you are a serious reader who wants to be challenged.

I received this book as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program in exchanged for an honest review.

Show Less

Joyce? Roth? Lawrence? They all kept popping into my mind as I was reading Eimar McBride's novel, THE LESSER BOHEMIANS. But then I'd wonder, Has she really read those guys, or does she maybe think all the sex in this book is something brand new with her? Well, whatever is true, this is a Joycean

Show More

stream-of-consciousness marathon of seemingly unending sex in all its variations, both good and bad. And, to paraphrase an old nursery rhyme, When it's good it's very very good / But when it's bad it is HORRID.

Because, in this tale of first love and sexual awakening, the narrator, an 18 year-old Irish lass freshly arrived in London for acting school, falls hard for a handsome actor twenty years her senior, and we only gradually learn of dark sexual secrets, both in the narrator's past as well as in that of her older lover.

The club scene in 1990s London is graphically portrayed, and McBride shows us the seedy side in intimate detail too, particularly the inner city areas of Camden and Kentish Town, where much of the story takes place - cramped and cluttered 'bedsits' and community-living apartments crowded with too many occupants where casual sex and partner-changing seem to be the norm.

Because McBride's style is so unusual (normal grammatical rules regarding punctuation and dialogue are pretty much out the window), I would exhort readers to hang in there (I almost didn't), because once you get 40 to 50 pages in, you'll find you've gotten used to it, and the story picks up its pace by that time, the two principals having met. And after that it never really lets up. I found myself alternately charmed by the young narrator's first sexual encounters and, later, a bit repelled by what she allowed. Strangely however, all the sex aside, you realize that this is, above all else, a love story, albeit one filled with obstacles, kinky twists and turns, and multiple bumps in the road.

Compelling? Yup. Page-turning? Yup. (In fact there are few chapter breaks where one could normally stop, so I just kept reading and reading, even well past my normal bedtime.) Over-the-top sex? Yup again, and, while I didn't really find that off-putting, it did seem at times maybe just a little too much, not quite believable. But then there is an element here too - right alongside the sexual awakening - of sexual obsession. Does it seem like I'm dwelling a little too much on the sex stuff? Maybe, but I don't think so. And, as the story progresses, we learn more and more about the previous lives of the two lovers, things that serve to make them both seem more human, and to explain why they act the way they do.

Next-to-bottom line: if reading about sex makes you uncomfortable, then you won't like this book. Bottom line: that said, this is one helluva good story. Eimar McBride is very likely a name you'll be hearing a lot about. Her first novel, A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING, got a lot of print. I haven't read that one - yet. This one? Very highly recommended. (four and a half stars)

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

Show Less

Eily is an 18 year old Irish girl in London to attend a drama school. Stephen is a 38 year old successful actor tortured by his past. Eily meets Stephen and they fall in love.

The story is basically simple. The language is not.

McBride writes in a prose that is musical, rhythmic fragments from which

Show More

the reader has to piece together a meaning. I found the writing dizzying in its challenge for many pages until I "mastered" its style and was able to generally understand it (in its overall meaning, not always the individual sentences-or rather, phrases).

Although there were moments when I enjoyed the sound of the prose, I was often very frustrated by the trying to make sense of it.

And when I did, I found the story to be a simple, rather banal one, filled with sex-sometimes happy, often brutal. Maybe it's just my age, but I found the sex boring, especially after the fifth or tenth or whatever episode.

I found the end lovely and it almost redeemed the book for me. But overall, I found this book to be a lot of work with not enough reward. Again, on the positive side, the prose was lovely and overall (in the end) the story somewhat touching.

This book was given to me by LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

Show Less

Eimear McBride’s prose style is unique and definitely challenging at first. But, like typing or playing guitar, I found that if I just plunged in and read quickly without stopping to think about it, not only did it make perfect sense, but it was downright exhilarating and almost poetry. Somehow,

Show More

as her words tumble atop one another, with sporadic punctuation and entirely absent of quotation marks, she manages to capture the breathless quality of youthful exuberance and all-consuming passion.

And while I imagine plenty of people will have trouble with her style, I felt that was actually the best thing about McBride’s sophomore novel, The Lesser Bohemians. In a nutshell, it is the story of an eighteen year old Irish girl who comes to London to study drama and almost immediately begins an affair with an established stage actor twenty years her senior. Basically, that’s it. Sure they’re both pretty damaged and bring a barge-load of baggage into the relationship that causes a considerable amount of drama, but McBride mereley dispatches all of this with pages and pages of exposition as the characters re-count their traumatic pasts. Most especially the male character (whose name is not revealed until about 30 pages before the end of the book – the significance of which is still lost on me) who spends [literally] seventy pages unloading his sordid past in one long speech. Yes – seventy pages. From page 146 to page 215. That’s a whole lotta telling and, pretty much, no showing. And this ordeal comes after about ten scenes of the two of them tumbling into the sack during which McBride provides a blow-by-blow (no pun intended) account. Every time. Funny, but the very first sex scene between them (which is her first time) was so tender, funny and true-to-life that it gave me high hopes for a relatable story but after a while, the constant sex became dull and annoying. Not to mention the copious drinking and constant smoking. Unfortunately, there's not much else.

Because the entire story is told through the protagonist’s point of view, every scene takes place in her presence and so, toward the end, we are subjected to yet another multi-page (292 – 300) expository passage where in the male character relays a conversation (verbatim, apparently) he had with his ex. Again, all telling. No showing.

I wanted to enjoy this novel. McBride captures the excitement and passion of first love so eloquently. The private moments between the lovers were the most natural and realistic I’ve ever encountered. But the story itself was paper thin, the action frequently repetitive and the key dramatic agents were covered in static, over-long expository passages. All very amateurish. Shocking when you consider this novel took eight years to write.

And one final note - why is it that in every film, novel, TV series, etc. the ultimate declaration of a woman’s love for a man is engaging in some sort of sexual activity that’s unenjoyable for her? Yuck. Can’t she just spring for a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle or something? That would make a refreshing change.

Show Less

Author Eimear McBide's second novel, THE LESSER BOHEMIANS could have been just a run-of-the-mill coming of age novel. But, it is far more than that. It is unique in both it's story-line, and it's prose. The first half of this book is written in a choppy style, almost like modern day poetry, while

Show More

the remainder is written in a more traditional form.

This is the tale of a young Irish woman who travels to London to attend drama school. Set in the 1990's, the bright lights/big city charm is hypnotic to our young (and, virginal) protagonist, who soon finds drama not in school, but rather in an affair with a much older man. And, from there, the true gist of story truly begins.

I did enjoy this novel, but rather than a five star rating, I chose to instead, give it four stars. The reason for this is because like McBride's first book (A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING), her bumpy/jumpy style of writing was a bit tedious for me at times. That being said, THE LESSER BOHEMIANS was time well spent, and I look forward to this author's next literary outing.

Show Less

A hundred pages into this book I was torn if I hated this book or willing to fall in love with it. Eilmear McBride has a difficult, James Joyce-inspired writing style where there are no quotation marks and the lead female character's thoughts bleed into the dialogue, which is sometimes a mishmash

Show More

of multiple people talking.

"It'll be all wrecked now, I saw. Library school is it? he asks. Drama school actually. Which one? Does it matter? It might. How come? I'm an actor. Oh. He long-angle lights a cigarette Are you always this bad-tempered? And my cheeks go shame So then what would I have seen you in? Now, now, you should never ask an actor that, he says. Why, in case you've mostly been 'resting'? Exactly. And have you? No, I've not. So what's the last thing you did? This month I started work on a script. That's no. Sorry to interrupt, but can I get my coat? No! Eye beg here as he sits forward to let. She tugs it up and while buttoning, merciless, mouths Good luck! then gives the goading eyes Come round tomorrow alright? Alright. Left bereft so, I watch her now going going gone."

About 50 pages in it becomes easier to differentiate who's speaking or if the reader is ping-ponging around in the head of the lead female character (whose name is hidden until the very end). McBride does have this annoying habit of making the vowel sounds rhyme when the female lead is thinking.

Overall, the book is great Bildungsroman/coming-of-age story. McBride makes her female character so realistic through the character's self-doubt, anxiety on how to handle sex, and her competing desires to party and have a good time while sustaining a relationship with a man who's past that stage in his life.

There are parts of this book that can be compared to a typical romance novel, but McBride makes her work and characters more complex than stock lovers. The older man understands that he doesn't want to appear as a lecher by being involved with a women 20+ years his junior, and it's interesting to see how his thought process evolves as the book goes on. His backstory is a worthy read in itself.

The ending was unfulfilling and anyone who has ever read a book with two unconventional romantic leads can kind of guess what will happen. It's still certainly a worthy read.

*An advance copy of this book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review.*

Show Less

I got off to a rough start with The Lesser Bohemians. McBride's writing style took a while to get used to, but once it became less about being just in the protagonist's thoughts and there was more interaction with other characters it became easier to follow along and get caught up in the story.

The

Show More

story itself... well it was not what I expected. The two main characters are actors in different parts of their careers and lives, which would have been enough to give their romance issues. But things keep getting more and more... and MORE... everything. To the point where in another book it may have been too much, but as I finished reading last night I was so glad to have been with these characters through the end. I would recommend this book with the caveat that it takes a decent amount of time to get adjusted to style.

Show Less

An accomplished actor in his late thirties and an eighteen-year-old aspiring actress newly arrived from Ireland meet in London and begin a yearlong affair fraught with desire and despair. This is a very simplistic summary of The Lesser Bohemians, an absolutely incredible book written by Eimear

Show More

McBride. In a style at first somewhat difficult to grasp she writes with such intensity and raw beauty that it was, at times, necessary for me to put down the book to catch my breath. Easily one of the best novels I’ve read thus far in 2016.

Show Less

Thanks library-thing.com for a copy of this book to reveiw.

Very strange writing at times makes this a unique book to read and different is good ways. I like when books go off the normal track, it makes them memorable. At times awkward and cringeworthy, we follow a actress's school days onward.

Show More

This book will stay with you a while after you read it.

Show Less

I found this book tough to read, and then tough to put down. Our heroine, unnamed until near the end of her story, has come to London in the mid 1990s to attend drama school. She meets and falls in love with an actor 20 years her senior, and begins a roller-coaster of an affair. It turns out that

Show More

her love is a damaged man in many ways; she too has her secrets. Together and separately they explore sex, drugs, and alcohol in a world filled with squalor. The sex is raw, and described in detail. McBride chooses to tell her story in stream-of-consciousness. I admit I found that tough to get into at first. The novel ends on a positive note, but I wonder, what happens to this couple next? Can their love conquer the pain and hurt and damage they have borne and inflicted?

Show Less