Harrow is Harrowing. Review of Harrow by Joy Williams

 Without a doubt, one of the strangest books I've ever read. Both hilarious and sad, with some of the most clever lines I've read in a long time. It's hilarious in that the situations are bizarre. For instance, a mom can't bring herself to tell her little boy that his father just murdered his grandfather, so she had the cake decorator paint the murder scene on the boy's birthday cake. The cake decorator does this by doing a rendition of the oil painting, Saturn Devouring His Children.

If that's not strange enough for you, there's plenty more where that came from.

The sadness comes in because humans have completely destroyed nature and most people either don't care or they see it as a victory over the earth. Harrow is full of peculiar people doing odd things, partly due to the destruction of the earth, but also because nobody seems to have a purpose anymore except for some dotty elderly eco-warriors who waited a little too long to do anything.

Go into this book with the understanding that it's not like most books. Read it knowing that things will be strange and there's no coming back from that. Read it with a sense of humor.

Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read and review Harrow.