There is so much in this book that it's very difficult to verbalise much about it. Brilliant, detailed, inventive, very human studies of addiction, depression, recovery, obsession, and the difficulties of interaction and communication. All within an absurd but carefully presented (though nowadays looking less and less unrealistic) alternative 90's, a world that turns out to be quite natural to inhabit during the (long, but pleasurable) process of reading the book, along with the minds of the main protagonists and even of many of the secondary characters. The language is varied, deliciously creative, and fit to the different characters. Several scenes in the book will stay with me for a long time.