The comparisons to Franzen (especially Crossroads) are fair, but I liked this much more than even The Corrections. Maybe it’s because Murray is Irish, and Irish fiction seems to connect with me. Maybe he writes women better, maybe he’s just better at building tension. I could not get enough of this book.

The story revolves around a family that might be on the edge of falling apart. At first it’s told from the perspective of Cass, the teenage daughter, and we get to understand the stakes — the family business is on the rocks, she has complicated teenager problems, not the least of which is that she lives in a small town and can’t wait to escape.

The perspective shifts every hundred or so pages, which with Franzen I usually find exhausting, but not here. Each character narrates differently, and each style is unique, memorable and effective, but what’s more compelling is seeing the same events through each of their perspectives. Many of the critical reviews take issue with the style — if you’re one of those that gets mad at a lack of punctuation marks, this ain’t for you.

The theme of escape, or what drags us back to our roots, runs throughout each character’s story in a different way — Cass wants to be grownup and cosmopolitan, PJ, the 12-year old son, has a conflict with another kid and decides he needs a change of scenery, dad Dickie reached escape velocity as a student only to have his brother’s death bring him home. Mom Imelda grew up dirt-poor and is constantly afraid of anything that reveals her roots.

The last section blows up the structure in increasingly unusual, and increasingly effective ways. The tension in the last 100 pages was almost unbearable. It sure didn’t feel like 600+ pages.