Philadelphia Inquirer // The Water Cure by Percival Everett
Frank Wilson over at my hometown Philadelphia Inquirer was nice enough to let me review Percival Everett’s latest.
Consider yourself warned: The Water Cure will keep you awake at night for however long it takes you to read it and likely for a significant amount of time afterward. The novel, part revenge fantasy and part treatise on ancient philosophy, details the emotional devastation of a father beset on all sides by trouble and tragedy. It is at times violent, blasphemous, crude, juvenile, indecent, hilarious, upsetting – and altogether captivating, so to speak, for those very reasons.
11/27: Conversational Reading is discussing the review today. Some people over there aren’t thrilled about my comparison of Everett to Gilbert Sorrentino.
11/28: My review has been reprinted in today’s Lexington Herald-Leader and the Centre Daily Times in State College, PA.
12/5: PopMatters has also republished this review.
12/7: Minneapolis Star-Tribune too.
12/28: This review is all over the damn place.
12/16: San Jose Mercury News.