Yes, I'm Aware It Was a Rhetorical Question

Rob Hiaasen (Baltimore Sun) profiles debut novelist Paul Mandelbaum, who "might be the first University of Maryland graduate to invent a character who is dying because he ate a human brain during an expedition to New Guinea." That's one of many plot strands in Garrett in Wedlock. Among those who have praised the trade paperback original: Carolyn See (WaPo), who tries to frame potential reader reactions to the interweaving problems Garrett faces thanks to his wife's ex-husbands within a red state vs. blue state emotional spectrum, then observes:

"[T]he last chapter here disappointed me. It seemed to cover behavior that's been done to death in literary terms, with an ending that came straight out of a creative writing class. But what's a trite final 29 pages compared with a previous 266 pages of surprise, originality and joy?"

Plenty, some might say, but I haven't gotten to those 29 pages, so I'm not ready to venture an opinion. (I thought it was a bit cute to see that Mandelbaum's official website pulled the "266 pages of surprise, originality, and joy" bit for a blurb, though...) If you want a little help making up your mind about a possible purchase, he's put up an MP3 from a bookstore reading.