This book made me feel cold and achy and in need of VERY fuzzy socks from page one. Almost too bleak to read, but every time I tried to put it down, his little boy drew me back in.  Some of my favorite lines:

“scavenged bowl of the countryside” (p. 19) A giant’s view, or a bird’s. I sometimes see bowls now, instead of hills when I drive.

“where the waters slurried into the pool” (p. 30) I teach Beowulf and this line brought me back to Grendel’s “wound slurry” after the first battle. Like a cherry slurpee from 7-Eleven, according to one of my students.

“teeth claggy with human flesh” (p. 75) is a line I often think about while flossing.

“where the spoken bones of oracles lay moldering” (p. 261)  What a great word, “moldering.”  I sometimes lay on my couch, thinking, daydreaming, moldering…

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