This is a great novel that took me forever to read. I spent many, many evenings lingering poolside with the weight of this tome in my hands and on my chest. Vollmann does so many things well (intimacy, bio-power, familial psychotics, street-grit, sex-funk, self-consciousness/doubt/identity, prismed characterizations, metaphor) that The Royal Family incessantly delights, even as it collapses to singular density with an over-awning and excrescent despair that aggregates through the pages with vascularized malignancy. If you decide to get intimate with this book, prepare to feel terrible. Our hero doesn't plummet so much as seep through the San Franciscan Tenderloin to an event horizon of despondency and mental illness, where, as seen from earth, he appears to become frozen in time. There is no vanishing point. Our fall is infinite.
Leatherby Libraries Call Number: PS3572.O395 R6 2001
2nd Floor Humanities Library
Review submitted by: Chris Rynd, Development Writer, University Advancement
Rating: Highly Recommended
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