It May Be Too Early To Call This The Book of The Year, But, I Am Telling You, Girls, From Where I Stand, It Looks Like A Contender!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    After reading the 800+ pages of "A Little Life," I was hesitant to take up a massively heavy volume of over 600 pages, especially one covering a subject I know absolutely nothing about--football.

                                     But "Lost Empress" turns out to be this massive, Altmanesque novel.  It has the scope, but not the density of Thomas Pynchon, and it covers football, the criminal justice system, while referencing everyone from Salvador Dali to J.D. Salinger, to Joni Mitchell.

                                      What more could one ask?  How about a history of Rikers, and Hart Island, and the examination of the prison system?

                                         Plus a cast of characters ranging from the Gill siblings, fighting over football rights (Sister Nina is a laugh, a real Cruella De Ville type, with the one liners to go with it); a disgruntled switchboard operator named Sharon, convicts and guards in Rikers--name it, this story has it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                           For four days I was glued to my chair by the scope of this story, which I could not tear myself away from.  So far, this is my Book Of The Year,  but that could change, by the time the year ends.

                                           Still, if you have a taste, as I do, for big, epic works of fiction that are well written, and keep both plot and character in focus, this is THE ONE to read, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!