This Is Johnson's First Novel, But I Want To Read Her Short Story Collection, "Fen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                         The underwater world described by Daisy Johnson in "Everything Under" is wonderfully detailed and haunting.  The story of Gretel, a girl searching for the mother who abandoned her, laced with a gender updating of 'Oedipus' is less successful.  This book swept me away with its gorgeous prose, not its narrative.  Maybe this writer is better at the short story.  If I do read "Fen," I will let you know.

                                        Absorbing, though not as good as "Circe," by Madeline Miller, which is the better Greek mythology treatment novel, "Everything Under" has caught on due to its strong sense of language.  If Johnson had devoted as much to the narrative as the language, she might have had a hit on her hand.

                                          What she ends up with is a nice try.

                                            Yet, this books makes for me, the tenth book read on "The New York Times !00 Most Notable Books Of 2018."

                                                How the hell did it make it?