"A sweet, increasingly surreal fable....The fantastic events seem less momentous than the almost saintly likeableness of Lucio, one of those people whom things happen to with a cockeyed vengeance. Levine's slangy, salt-of-the-earth translation helps to make this shapely and appealing."
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Kirkus Reviews "Its broader themes of compatibility and well-being, and man's attachment to place and routine, connect it with such older twentieth-century masterworks as Mann's
The Magic Mountain."
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Choice "A witty and ironic comment on our desires and the social structures we have created. This tale...weds laughter and terror in haunting fashion."
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Publishers Weekly