This is an awesome book, well written and very interesting. ( )

Stream of consciousness narration interspersed with conversation among middle-aged brothers (& in-laws) away for a long weekend retreat. I actually found this difficult to take, it's a little far outside my comfort & interest zone. Funny because I enjoy other authors that have a not dissimilar style, JP Donleavy & Dylan Thomas come to mind. But I found myself quickly depressed & frustrated by these men & their lives & conversations. Maybe I'm just the wrong demographic/target audience. Not a broad appeal, but not badly written, I think. ( )

Four men and a river during a hot summer weekend without the wives. Brothers they are, except the brother-in-law Gabriel --- hmm, is that a religious allusion? I don't know but I don't care. This novel frees me to accept its gifts in whatever degree of understanding I can muster. I could cite dozens of disguised references to historical and literary people, places and events, but I am fairly confident there were dozens more that sailed past me on the current of that living river while these four characters let fly with a blizzard of dialogue encompassing their deepest musings, secrets, regrets about . . . well, pretty much everything.

Zink uses one technique that, by itself, launches this work into its own category of prose. The dialogue runs fast and furious, then wham -- here comes the dedicated singular voice of narration, set apart by italics and carrying a flavorful baste of description that drips down over each character and pools at the bottom in a broth of omniscience. Before he knows it, the reader has joined this family of brothers and built a shared history with them.

The language is saucy and expressive. Raucous, flowery, funny, thought-provoking, and sometimes downright mystifying. There were lines I read five, six times before giving up and letting the sentences fall into the mix undefined. But even if certain conventions of speech are annoying to the reader*, the words are honest enough to produce full-blown characters without a lot of straight description.

As for the quality of discussion, a lot of conclusions are left dangling -- probably on purpose, and probably to invite the reader to zero in on his own thoughts. Topics meander from man/woman, man/parents, man/jesus, man/self, to man/nation -- most of these covered under the influence of pot while the non-brother propels himself around overhead with a motorized fan strapped to his back.

This genre that Zink has created is quite entertaining, and I look forward to more of it. There's freedom in the absence of traditional plot constraints and grammatical necessities. Reading through these pages is like dipping your feet in the river on a hot day. You can't help wanting to throw yourself all the way in. ( )

In the beginning, this book was somewhat difficult for me, an avid reader, to dive in to, but I stuck through the first 15 pages and reading became much easier once I worked out the flow of characters and locations.

As the title implies, this is a book of dialogue and reads somewhat like a stage play. Don't expect to find any deeply moving descriptions in here. Those are left to the imagination and, in fact, as I read along, I found myself easily visualizing what was happening, even though nothing was truly described. What becomes moving or touching is the dialogue itself, showing the development of the characters through conversation alone. They don't develop to each other, but the reader begins to see them as individuals, each with a past that has made them the person they are today.

There is some deep conversation in here, mostly political, but there is also some creative insight as well, so readers should be prepared for both. Ideas are always shown in balance, there are no one sided conversations in these pages and it is easy to see each person's point of view within the story.

Note: Though this book was a free gift from the author, the content of my review was in no way influenced by the gifting. The book speaks for itself and my review would have been worded just this way even if I'd gone out and bought it. I also give bonus points for Text To Speech enabling on Kindle format.... but that also wasn't a factor in the above review. ( )

This book just wasn't for me. Due to the way the book is constructed, mainly dialogue, I felt it was hard to really to start connecting to the book. I did enjoy the concept of a book all written in dialogue, but I never felt like I wanted to read more, that I needed to see what happens. I did enjoy some of the topics touched upon and did enjoy reading the characters thoughts on them. Overall, cool concept, it just couldn't hold my attention. ( )