This book was a puzzle—I was never sure if I was reading satire or horror or what, which is my reading flaw, that I wanted to be able to classify it. It started out as a detective story, but with America’s racial past and present front and center—it reminded me a little of Attica Locke—but it quickly grew stranger and stranger. Here’s what that looks like: “The congregation could be seen cresting a ridge then coming down toward town like a tornado. And like a tornado it would destroy one life and leave the one beside it unscathed. It made a noise. A moan that filled the air. ‘Rise,’ it said, ‘Rise.’ It left towns torn apart. Families grieved. Families assessed their histories’ (306). The book’s in flinching speculation about the legacy of white Americans’ racial violence makes it a difficult read, but also a worthwhile one, and Everett’s characters have the ring of truth, even when he is poking fun at them. I will read more of Percival Everett. One note: Please, Graywolf Press, do a better editing job—there is no excuse for substituting “we’re” for “were,” unless you’re editing on an iPhone.