Dogs of Babel: A Novel Book

This book, in a word, stinks. And now I shall tell you why.

The main character marries a woman named Lexy. Lexy is terribly mysterious, and vibrant, and creative, and such and so on. Okay, whatever, she dies by falling out of an apple tree. Now that I have been browbeaten with the symbolism, let's go to a flashback so Parkhurst can work up some sympathy for this dead chick. By having her suggest that they take a spur of the moment trip to Disneyland! Which I hate! Which should be firebombed! While Mickey screams in agony! Seriously, Disneyland? And then she has a fit when someone cuts the line at "It's a Small World?" I hate this woman.

Lexy is an artist. She paints death masks for grieving people. She pulled all her own hair out then had Medusa's snakes tattooed on her scalp. She never wants to have children because she thinks she will be a bad mother. She makes her husband have sex with her while she wears someone else's death mask. Can we guess what really happened in the tree? The apple tree? Hey isn't there an apple tree in some other book? And snakes? What?

Let's cut to the chase here. The only worthwhile character in this book is the dog. When the narrator managed to put this dog in mortal danger by being a complete idiot, I kept reading just to see what happened to it. Plus, I was more than halfway through. Plus, my brain had just died from reading Ghost Wars (it was so hard). Don't read this book.