I read this because Sol Stein mentioned it and The Arrangement multiple times in his Reference Book for Writers. Learned while reading this that Stein had edited The Arrangement, as well. The prose style is very similar between the two, which I enjoy, but only for a few hundred pages. There's only so much rationalization and dissimulation I can handle. By about page 500-600, I was seriously losing interest. The last section, though, dealing with death is amazing and bumped up the rating a star. ( )