The Doloriad

I am in awe of the rich imagination of Missouri Williams, which created this incestuous postapocalyptic township. Brothers and sisters and their offspring, last survivors after a cataclysmic event, rebuild aimlessly, guided by misinterpreted understandings of the old world taught by video tapes and a forgetful schoolmaster. The characters and setting are all uncanny and unnatural, but this only makes their weird motivations more believable.

The writing is excellent and teems with life from the first page. Although the narrative felt a little lost in the last section of the book, it was redeemed by a haunting and hopeful ending. Few books manage yo completely imagine a new ethics like this one does; it is a wonderful debut and I am excited to read more from Williams in the years to come.

Doloriad is a ride, man. It takes you by the hand—or the hair—through the brutal birth of new way of seeing, leaving you uncertain, at the end of the book, of true ends and beginnings.

Would love to hear better-read folx talk about it for a while (I can imagine there's some function that can turn to allusive what is elusive to me—get Aquinas in here, dammit!), because all my thoughts are scattered and unsettled—other than I love the prose, the bleary images.