I've determined to read Lucy Ellmann's complete works in preparation for her new tome coming out in September.

In this second book of hers I've read so far I was at first doubtful. The beginning of the book was not as strong as its middle and end. You have to get the know the characters, I think, to understand what the author was going for. Like Stanley Elkin, Ms. Ellmann sets out to surprise and delight, without regard to readers' defense mechanisms. Many will find passages offensive. But no two experiences will be the same. She rakes society over the coals, and does it wittily and excessively, with verve and elan and aplomb.

The improbabilities don't seem all that improbably in this wholly modern romance novel due to the internal monologues, the narration and the description, which are all superb, though uneven, unpredictable, silly, outrageous, but somehow heartwarming, unutterably sad, and chilling. Ellmann is a writer who appears to be frothing at the mouth. Between her literary jaws she snaps Jane Austen, Bronte, our own romantic naivete, humanists, lascivious art historians, men, women, defenseless old people... Everyone bleeds. But the haphazard juxtapositions are enjoyable, quotable and brimming with subtexts. Like the brushstrokes so delicately inserted into the plot, Ellman's brushstrokes are magnificently irreverent. ( )