Doug's Reviews > Ducks, Newburyport

Really at a loss as to how to review this behemoth door-stopper of a book. Although very early on I harbored thoughts of DNF'ing it, I'm so glad I labored on, since at some point, the book becomes downright addictive and it's difficult to put down. I still have a few quibbles, mainly that although much of the 'stream-of-consciousness' format makes sense and is often clever and humorous, there are also times that there are non-sequiturs or words/lists that come totally out of left field... it's not necessarily the length that disturbed me as the fact so much of it is stellar, that those times when I felt the author was a bit indulgent... bugged me.

Minor complaint though, since this is such a sui generis piece of work, and it ultimately rewards the time invested. I'd suggest anyone contemplating the climb up the mountain to read the Kindle edition, as this is a book that requires so much backtracking to search for previous names/situations and definition assistance that it really helps to have those features readily available. It doesn't QUITE top my Booker rankings for this year (that honor goes to Ms. Levy), but it comes in at a close second.

Fun fact: the LAST book that took me ten days to read was last year's Booker winner - which was 1/3 the length!

PS.... one of the best things about the political underpinnings of the book is that Ellmann dares bring up a topic that NO major media outlet has had the cojones to report: namely the all too credible allegations that the faux president, in tandem with recently deceased convicted pedophile J. Epstein, raped a 13 year old girl. Should you care to learn the facts about that case, go to Justiceforkatie.com.