This is not a book for everyone. I can't quite thrust this book into your hand and say you'll give it five stars, too. The prose is plain and sparse, but meticulously composed. The author's introduction described his intention to make the book 'hollow,' and I'm not sure what that meant or even what it means after reading it, but I think he succeeded. That may not make sense, but that's kind of the feel of this whole book. There are known things, and things you will never know and must resign yourself to this fact. I was prepared to not like this book because there were whiffs of pretension before I even read a word, but it shook me. Especially in the end.

I borrowed a library copy, and I wish I had my own because it would be thoroughly underlined and dog-eared. I re-read some passages while I was reading, so much concentration was needed to discern the actions of certain parts. I might have revisited them in the future as well. Ball is a wonder with words.

There was one thing I did not like, which was the author's introduction that I felt could have been left as an afterword. The book is a fiction novel, but he based the characters of the father and the son on himself and his older brother who had Down syndrome, respectively. He chose not to write a memoir, but instead to write a future-set journey that described his meaningful relationship in a
true way. I think there was so much the reader was already asked to intuit during the reading, that this detail could have been left to a revelation after the story. But perhaps the blow the book’s end leaves the reader with would’ve been marred by the afterword instead of the perception that began the journey? I do not know. I do know that this book left me bereft.

One thing I didn't like. And yet, five stars.