Mar 27 2009
Book Review: Blood and Bone
Kyle Byrne is that guy. That guy you hope your daughter doesn’t go out with. That guy you feel sorry for and hire, even though you know he’ll bring you nothing but grief. That guy you sleep with even though he gets your name wrong and won’t ask for your number. That guy you stay friends with because you know he comes by his screwed up psyche honestly, but still let his calls go to voicemail. And Kyle knows he’s That Guy. Like many, even takes a certain amount of misplaced pride in it. He traces the problem back to not having a father. First an absent father, then a dead father. Now, suddenly, a ghost-father that keeps appearing at the most inconvenient times. Like his days weren’t screwed up enough. This is William Lasher’s Blood and Bone.
Kyle is just the sort of guy that I might have been friends with for the past twenty years. And there is a lot more to the story than his unresolved daddy issues–mobsters, cops and robbers, and layers more family secrets–but ultimately I found the book unsatisfying somehow. Too much or too little; hard to say. Not a bad read, but not a great read.
