Chris Adrian is possibly my favorite writer, but for some reason I was kind of reluctant to read this, his first novel. My hesitation may have been due to the Civil War-era setting, which is not a time period I am interested in. But Adrian is such an imaginative and unique writer that his story transcends its setting; the blurbs for the book puzzle me because they emphasize the setting and almost make it sound like a typical historical novel when it's anything but.

The plot brings together four main characters: Gob Hullman, the possibly fictional son of Victoria Hullman; Maci Trufant, a budding suffragist; Will Fie, a young doctor; and Walt Whitman. They are all united by their grief over loved ones lost during the war, and their grief brings them together in Gob's quest to create a machine that will abolish death and bring back not only their lost loved ones but every person who's ever died. Adrian always has some magical realism in his stories, so what seems at first to be typical 1860s America is revealed to have otherworldly and sometimes disturbing layers.

I really love Adrian's writing and the way he skews the world just enough to make you nearly believe that what he's saying could actually happen. Gob's Grief didn't quite take my breath away the way that "The Children's Hospital" and "A Better Angel" did, but it's still a great novel and highly recommended. ( )