this book was recommended to me by a guy i sat next to on a plane from salt lake city to saint louis. he was the son of an english professor and an avid reader himself. he said he re-reads just a handful of books. to the question, which of them was his favorite, he offered this. i feel confident saying a more qualified lead is probably hard to come by. in beginning the book i was entranced and full of lust by the end of the third page.

in the review before this one i spoke of how i mark notes on a book's pages when i read. if you were to look at this book, there are sections you'd think i read it ten times and poured over its pages as part of a dissertation defense. actually, strike that. if you were to look a this book you'd think ten people who do what i do had read it. it's a complete mess.

please note my use of the word sections in here. there were particular sections which really spoke to me. other portions of the text, not so much. but even where i found myself contextually disinterested, the writing was still unique and charged. trying to describe exley's style is challenging. it's a bit like vonnegut channeled through roth. the sheer abundance of twisted details make his pages effortful to read but only because the notions have such depth. the following passage, and one of my favorites, is a great example:

... the generation which will all retire to the great american southwest, where under dry, brilliant, and perpetual suns they will all live to be a hundred and fifty, watching reruns of ed sullivan on a colored screen twenty feet high. what i am now certain i am beseeching them to consider is that of itself longevity is utterly without redeeming qualities, that one has to live the contributive, the passionate, life and that this can well be done in twenty-six (hence keats) as in a hundred and twenty-six years...