I just read…

…David Grossman’s Booker Prize winning “A Horse Walks Into a Bar.” I had read a previous highly acclaimed novel of Grossman’s, which had made so little impression on me that I almost bought and read it a second time when it was re-acclaimed several years later. (I still can’ recall its title, so I may yet do that.) Anyway, I was reluctant to read this one, even though Adele (and Marilyn) (and Marilyn’s discerning Book Club) endorsed it. I began and put it down a couple times before seeing it through. The first half (or two-thirds) did nothing for me. (The novel is structured as a single evening’s performance by an Israeli nightclub comic and I found his voice annoying and the narrowness of the setting oppressive.) But as the central character descended further and further into memory and madness and self-exploration (about the time he recounts his trip home from summer camp), his grip upon me tightened and terrified.