have to admit, that it took some tenacity for some stretches of the book, before the story improves quite a bit in the last third. However, Hawke is not a bad author. He manages in the first two chapters to convey - with only a couple of thoughts of the protagonist - the similiarities of the characters. The reader cannot help but feel, that the two are made/destined for one another.

One thought that hit me while reading the story was, that Hawke's male protagonists are so self-involved, that you just have to wonder, how self-involved he himself is.

The ending is not bad, even though for the protagonist to sit in a cell with his angel and devil is a bit much. The thoughts laid down in the final chapters are interesting and worth considering. Still you have to ask yourself, whether such a long prelude was necessary, to come to this point, or whether a somewhat shortened story wouldn't have served the same purpose just as well.

In the end it is a story about growing up. Some of the anxieties about this process, which are mentioned in the final chapter, to me were somewhat reminiscent of the works of J. D. Salinger.

On a park bench in the vicinity of the fountain