Well

i read this book for two reasons: firstly because there is a lot of hype about it over in the states saying that Mcintosh is somewhat of a breakthrough author and secondly because some people say it is as good as 'Last Exit To Brooklyn' (Hubert Selby himself praises the book)However, dont go into reading this book with such high expectations as i did, because i was disappointed. it starts off interestingly with a short clip in the first person. However it quickly went downhill from here and the next couple of stories were rather pathetic in my opinion. Mcintosh tries too hard to get across these 'dark compulsions' etc and it comes off as quite false. His prose starts as somewhat awkward with a lot of unnecessary swearing, it seems like hes again trying too hard to make himself stand out.However the book is not all bad, it deserves these three stars that i rate it for two of the stories which are definately worth the read, 'Fishboy' and 'Looking Out For Your Own' are both extremely strong and the only ones that are actually 'devastatingly beautiful'. Fishboy especially tore my heart out.These two stories are definately worth the read but give the rest of the novel a miss...

A virtuoso first book; an ensemble novel that takes as its cast of characters dozens of loosely connected individuals in a working class suburb of Seattle. I read this book five years ago and still find it popping into my mind every now and then - especially the Fishboy sequence, and the dream-like opening pages, written in the first person, about a woman in a grocery store queue experiencing a kind of nameless dread. I wonder if Mcintosh will ever do anything else? Hope so. He's a very talented writer.

This is one of my favourite books. The review it gets from Hubert Selby Jr says it all. I highly recommend it.

Thanks!