Disappointing book. I felt cheated at the end. Hard to say who was crazier, the mother who talked to saints or the nutty daughter. ( )

This is the story of. Um. Actually I have no idea. WHile Kotapish can go on for pages about the earthy smell emanating from her mother's womb as her unborn sister germinates, she seems to not want to waste too many words on an actual plot. After a lot of heavy prose and piecemeal snippets it appears that the protagonist had witnessed some awful subway incident and left her ill described hectic Manhattan life to park herself in Virginia suburbia. She has a crazy mom, Lois, whose flirtation with deluded insanity is all the more confused by the author's confusing prose.

Phantom baby, named Nancy, is the absolutely most disturbing character and seems to only want to destroy things. She speaks in weird poetic fragments and contributes nothing to the story.

More often than not this seemed to be about the author and not the plot and the author was so obviously in love with her own writing. For example, she (protagonist) mentions how at age eight she loved her friend's dad because of the beautiful sentences he composed.

Anyway other than being rather beautifully composed, as a long poem, this book stank. ( )

Salvage is beautifully imagistic and a compelling read. It is thoughtful but entirely visceral, a mad traipse through inner worlds and dusty cupboards that make up memory. I've already lost two copies by loaning them out to friends (who have yet to return them!) Hopefully, I'll have enough spare change soon to buy it again, and this time I'll be sure to get it back. ( )