ANGEL DOWN

by Daniel Kraus

I don’t always grab the winner of the Pulitzer Prize so quickly after its announcement, but when I heard that this book was all one sentence my curiosity was piqued. As I suspected however, the whole book-in-one-sentence was more gimmick than grammatical marvel. Essentially, Kraus never put any final punctuation at the end of paragraphs and started each one with the word “and.” Based on one little clue about 50 pages in, I believe he was trying to mimic the fractured mental state of a soldier in the trenches, but for me he was entirely ineffective. Eventually I think I was just ignoring it, but that doesn’t seem like the mark of a well-written book to me. The story is a World War I drama with elements of magical realism, but filled with so much brutality I never really connected with any of the characters. So despite critical acclaim, Angel Down was a complete miss for me. (Lily)