At the Atomic Book club last night, I was just about the only person who liked the book of around 25 people. I was glad to go nearly last, and happy I had long decided my open comment was, “Some books I love and want to hand to everyone. This book I loved, but I have no idea who it is for, except maybe me.”

I was, however, disappointed to learn more about the author. What I read as a brilliant, very aware, attempt to build a very specific kind of art with a specific message, may, in fact, be a straight, earnest take. There’s a whole project around this work. One of the other things I decided to share before book club was, “I hope this is the only book he’s written like this. It would be a sign of his skill if this was built with an intent to go for a very specific language and intent versus this just being how he writes.” That seems… not to be true.

Oh well, death to the artist.