After Await you reply and You remind me of me I saw Dan Chaon as a solid, exciting writing who would probably keep on creating 4-star books. No 3 stars, no 5 stars. (just as Jeffrey Moore and Kevin Brockmeier). 
 This one started as I expected: fascinating, deep personal backgrounds, realistic and plot-driven. 
 But this book is waaaaaaayyyy to long. It's incredible just how many pages are redundant. This made me feel less engaged and curious and it slowed down the pageturning quality to a minimum. 
 I do still regard him as a good writer, although this is not his best novel.