There are no words to describe how much I wanted to really like this novel, maybe even love it. After reading the author's bio, the book's description and the advance praise, I couldn't wait to devour it. I haven't read any Donald Goines, but in my mind I expected this to be a very literary Donald Goines type novel. Woodward is obviously very learned, maybe even brilliant, and he's a competent writer. He seems like the type of guy who is comfortable from the outhouse to the White House and all places in between, and that's a very good thing. I say all of that to get to my point: He has the background and capacity to knock my socks off, but he didn't this first time around. As my girlfriend likes to say, he was doing too much. The storyline is engaging, but it's schizoid, it's disjointed and it's too multi-thematic dealing with familial angst, racial strife, greed and some other stuff. There is an overabundance of characters, I literally lost track of who was who. And I love learning new words, but I kept the dictionary at my side the entire time and I used it, a lot. These weren't words that one could decipher from the context clues. Although impressive, his verbal calisthenics just served as an additional and unnecessary distraction. The first half of the novel was truly disappointing, but surprisingly, it got much better at the half-way mark. I held out hope. There are moments of brilliance, including the burn victim/hospitalizaion segment, where I wasn't reading, but actually experiencing. However, the second half didn't redeem it. And what I found most perplexing was the lost opportunities Woodward had to really take me somewhere raw and edgy, since he was obviously writing what HE wanted anyway: There were sex scenes with no sex, there was suffering without suffering, there was no gore when I expected gore. He took me to the cusp, and just left me there. Now, the irony is that all of the things I find problematic are probably what impressed his publisher and those whom heap on the praise. It's my own opinion of myself, but for what it's worth, I don't think I'm shortsighted, but I really didn't get this and I wanted to. Maybe this story (stories) and characters would've been better suited for three or four novellas. Woodward wrote this for the ivory tower crowd and unfortunately, this ivory tower is so exclusive it consists of Woodward alone. Or maybe Woodward and his publisher. I highly anticipate his next novel (no sarcasm). ( )