Vineland

A surprise; I did not expect it to be so awesome.

‰ЫПPrairie tried bringing her hair forward in long bangs, brushing the rest down in front of her shoulders, the surest way she knew, her eyes now burning so blue through the fringes and shadows, to creep herself out, no matter what time of day or night, by imagining that what she saw was her mother‰ЫЄs ghost. And that if she looked half a second too long, it would begin to blink while her own eyes stayed open, its lips would start to move, and then speak to her stuff she was sure she‰ЫЄd rather not hear ‰Ы_. / Or maybe that you‰ЫЄve ached all your life to hear but you‰ЫЄre still scared of? the other face seemed to ask, lifting one eyebrow a fraction more than Prairie could feel in her own face.‰Ыќ

‰ЫПFrenesi had thought for a while that her need to talk would build out of control, till she was helpless to hold it in and she ended up as a crazy woman on a bus bench, along an endless flatland boulevard, talking out loud without rest, like an astronomer seeking life out in space, on a brave slender hope that somebody might begin to listen. But in practice she‰ЫЄd only kept getting up one morning after another till at some point she found she‰ЫЄd adapted well enough to what she was becoming.‰Ыќ

What a bizarre book. I've had this in my bookshelf for many years, and finally got around reading it.

It's a weird story, I'm not sure how to condense it here. It's about a family: Zoyd, who's kind of burnt-out old hippie, Frenesi who everybody wants to find and Prairie, their daughter who hears most of the backstory from an old family friend she meets by surprise.

It all is some kind of recap of the Nixon and Reagan years, and a commentary on War on Drugs. I suppose. Interesting, but also confusing.