For the first three quarters, I was floating through. The device of forgotten memories, the mythic image of the boatman, the contention among and around the group, all let me plod along like the lost confused couple at the core of the novel. As my wife kept asking me, "Do you like it," I kept replying, "I don't know. It's interesting. I see what it's doing, but it feels eerie."

And then the end. It feels like a mirror held up to our age—2015 and beyond. There has been a buried giant we have forgotten, and it's not Saxon or Briton, Left or Right, but rather the fact that these are different sides and peace itself isn't the illusion we've created, but the fog we've chosen to not pull back. When it is, against our will, we stand at the precipice of destruction.

And the last chapter ruined me.