I wasn't going to review this book. Chalk it up to failure of nerve. Then a line delivered by Mia Farrow in Woody Allen's comedy, Alice, popped out of nowhere, changing my mind. 
 Flashback to December, 2015. Agog at the two million dollar advance awarded the latest "IT" book in Vogue, I rushed to place a library hold, then recoiled when handed a door-stopper brick--sadistically--on seven day loan! 
 So began the most consternating reading week I've ever endured. Fortunately, it was Boxing Week. Homework done, I started the year grateful to Barry Hertz of the Globe for proclaiming this 900-plus page tome "in desperate need of an editor." 
 But "a staggering work of genius" too? Hmm. Okay, what worked for me: 
 Vocabulary - There certainly was lots. I normally like this (looking words up). This time, though, there wasn't the time. Still, maybe now, with a precedent set, editors might stop pestering writers to dumb their manuscripts down so much. 
 Principal Characters - I didn't care for New York City punk-rocker/artist William Hamilton-Sweeney the Third or his hangers-on (a boy and a girl, the female half of which gets shot, giving the book the seed of a plot), but I chuckled at some of the groupie names (Sewer Girl; D. Tremens; Demon Brother (not a groupie) . . .). Billy Three-Sticks, too, seemed a stroke of genius at first--till I later read in Vanity Fair about some other real-life somebody the Third whose childhood nickname also was "Sticks." 
 Supporting Cast - These I loved. Polio survivor, Larry Pulaski, investigates when the girl gets shot. Journalist acquaintance, Richard Groskoph, befriends her father, a pyrotechnician, enlightening readers (!) about his career. Jenny Nguyeh, Richard's neighbor, eventually gets involved as well, providing some wacky common sense. Then there's the fabulous "Dr." Zig. When the climax occurs during a blackout (July 13, 1977), while everyone else is stumbling around, this radio jock gets stuck in the subway, later relating his escapade in one of the most hilarious rants I've read in print or heard on air. 
 Which brings me back to the movie line: 
 So Mia Farrow walks into a party. It's Christmas. The egg-nog served has been spiked. A love-potion somehow lands in the mix, rendering the men there smitten with her. 
 Clearly, there must be a parallel. 
 Contemplating the chain of command that approved this book's stupendous advance with no penny spent to trimming the fat, I've come to conclude my poor subconscious must have channeled Alice's thoughts when--faced with that crowd of fawning men--she wonders: 
 "What is everybody on?"