Amy P. Knight

Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss

I wanted to like this–but in the end it was too conceptual for me. I had the feeling throughout that concept was more important to the author than character, and that just isn’t what I want in a novel. There were two separate strands: Epstein, in the third person, and Nicole, in the first. They seemed like they were going to meet, but they never did, running instead on parallel tracks throughout. The Epstein sections were much more engaging–but even there, I never really lost the sense that the author was using this book to work out some personal stuff.