Just astonishing.

This book is the most ambitious and layered thing I’ve read in a long, long time. The style of writing is kind of like Rachel Cusk, meditative and conversational, kind of highbrow, but often shockingly direct.

It’s full of ideas about history, politics and art, identity, relationships, and a whole lot more. At the core of it though is a kind of exploration of whether we know what we think we know, about other people and ourselves.

That’s all fluff. This is a mystery story, set in an alternate universe where the southern states seceded into their own religious dystopia. It’s full of weirdness — I could imagine a whole reddit community dedicated to sorting out the alternate history easter-eggs here (David Bowie! Brianna Eno!).

I imagine this will wind up on a lot of year-end lists. It’s so good. Don’t read too much about it. Just pick it up.