Well, the mostly descriptive Publishers Weekly review did call my book “glacially paced” (which my friend Jim suggests means “majestically paced”), but they also said it was “nuanced with fluid prose and a pensive, melancholy undercurrent,” which is kind of what I was going for. The review contains some minor factual errors, but I’m not the sort of jerk to call attention to those.

Kirkus was frankly irritated by the book, but the lively review did note my “mastery of language,” and called me “a terrific writer who can craft a simile with the best of them.” That takes the sting out of the criticisms, much like, um, some … some sort of salve applied to, I don’t know, an animal bite of one or another kind.