"A good scalawag sticks to her diary."
5 stars
Lorrie Moore's writing is devastatingly gorgeous; this is the kind of writing I want to drown in. Every other sentence knocking the breath out of you.
Summarizing the plot seems incredibly inefficient to describe this book. I kind of like the vague summary on the inside cover: "A teacher visiting his dying brother in the Bronx. A mysterious journal from the nineteenth century stolen from a boardinghouse. A therapy clown and an assassin, both presumed dead, but perhaps not dead at all..." That gives you the basics and yet reveals absolutely nothing. This is a powerful study on death, love, grief, what we owe to others, and what we owe to ourselves. I will read this book again.