From the outset, Hemon entangles his own histories with the souls of fictitious characters. When his characters stray too deep into historical context, Hemon steps right in to tell a few things and keep the reader straight. My childhood was saturated with histories of his just enterprises. Later on, he lost interest in Christmas, but never lost passion for pigs and heads. The grand scope of any large historical matter loses its shape and reshapes itself around the individual.
All history begins to orbit around the character and then, somewhat magically, the reader.
The book is not easy to read. The story is built from 33 vignettes, like 33 tiny islands. The young boy's life begins to look barren, and disconnected, and as motionless as this string of islands. His family becomes a batch of faraway characters he can hardly hear or see anymore. He's left with only a whisper of family history.