New Hampshire. Against a background of social desolation and family dysfunction, we get the internal perspectives of a group of young adults - that manage to flunk courses for which the only real examination consists of being able to open a door.

Disdainfully they fuck left, right, and center, working through mountains of abusive substances.

No matter! They are masters of the universe offspring, and bound to form the next generation of a bored, nihilist elite, lacking even the remotest sense of entitlement.

Funny how these perspectives don’t even relate, even though they cover the same events. A mesh of misunderstanding rooted in total lack of empathy.

Until the end, that is; which, in my reading, is the end of the road (pun intended) for the apex asshole amongst this joyless band of little shits.

This is not BEE’s finest. It lacks the focus, the pain and the urgency of the peaks of his oeuvre. I remember reading it, decades ago, and getting swept by the flow, the rhythm, of the narrative. I did not find that mood again.