You Lost Me There

You Lost Me There (2010) by Rosecrans Baldwin. This is Baldwin's first novel, and it really felt like a first novel. It's about Victor Aaron, a 58-year-old Alzheimer's researcher, a widower who has a 25-year-old girlfriend, but can't stop mourning the loss of his wife, Sara. I'd be lying if I said this book was a joy to read. It was work, from beginning to end, to plow my way through Baldwin's elliptical prose and try to make sense of it -- something I never quite managed. For one thing, the characters all drink a lot, which I have trouble relating to. Victor Aaron, the main character, was drunk for about half of the book. And these people are surprised when things in their lives don't quite go right. There were numerous cases where lines of dialogue just didn't sound right, and I had to stop and ask myself, "Now what die he/she mean by that?" Maybe it was a lack of insight on my part, but I just couldn't comprehend much of the novel. Grade: C+