Review Excerpt:

"Mr. Trachtenberg is a splendid, if curious, raconteur--world-class at literate whining . . . and close to that in assuming the comical stance of aesthete/thug (collapsed veins, pinpoint pupils, but never misses a punch-line), in sniffing out the corners of pain and danger and desolation in life, and as bewitched-bothered-and-bewildered as anyone has a right to be by God's silence. Not many books treat theodicy as comedy, nor do many. . . make a trip to Borneo an engaging occasion for picaresque social comedy.
.... There are some books that aren't like any other books, the ones you remember most fondly while scratching your head and wondering how they did it. Nabokov's 'Pale Fire' or John Collier's 'His Monkey Wife' or Camilo Jose Cela's 'Mrs. Caldwell Speaks to Her Son' or Hazlitt's 'Liber Amoris' or Supervielle's 'Voleur des Enfants' or Sacheverell Sitwell's 'Splendours and Memories' or, most recently, Geoofrey O'Brien's 'The Phantom Empire' come to mind. 'Seven Tattoos' is another one."