“Unsettled Ground” by Claire Fuller

We made another trip to the lovely Collected Works bookstore in Santa Fe last week, and Sam found this new book for me there. I've read and enjoyed two other books by Claire Fuller, so it only makes sense that I would enjoy a third. 

The cover is not bad-looking, but unfortunately when I read the blurb on the back I found I was not interested in the premise of the story. However, I want to support independent bookstores, and it’s always nice to have a souvenir from a vacation, so I went ahead and bought the book, hoping that Fuller's amazing writing would bring me around.

Unfortunately it was not love at first chapter. As I got started reading, I found the characters boring, and everything was just so depressing and overwhelming. But I pushed on, because you know me. I can't not.

So I read and I read about middle-aged twins Julius and Jeanie, living in poverty with their mother. And I read and I read about their lives getting continually worse, even though everything was bad enough to start with. 

But as I read, a funny thing happened. Before I was halfway through, I’d reached critical mass. It was still depressing and overwhelming, and I'm not sure I ever necessarily identified with Julius or Jeanie, but I did not want to stop reading. Claire Fuller has done it again, folks.