At the end of college I got involved with Janny, one of the best-read persons I'd ever met. I went on to graduate studies in New York city, she followed, transferring to Barnard College a semester later. For over two years the two of us lived with our respective libraries in a one room single in Union Theological Seminary's Hastings Hall.

Janny was a mystery fan I was a science fiction fan. Attempting to get me, a psych major, interested, she handed over Stout's How a God, a psychological mystery. I read at over a night or two between rounds as a campus security guard. Being mostly written in the second person, the experience of reading it was weirdly impressive, evocative of midnight paranoias.literature3 s Sun327 15

It's strange reading a Rex Stout book that has nothing to do with detectives or mysteries. 'How a God' is touted on the cover as an "extraordinarily brilliant novel about a sexual psychotic - his strange marriage, abnormal obsessions and dark desires". It is actually an account of Bill Sidney, from his school days to mid-life and his awkward relationships with women. He is fixated on elder sister Jane, has an affair with Sunday-school teacher Mrs Davis, falls in love with country-girl Lucy, but instead marries rich but unfaithful Erma, and finds a mistress in gamine Millicent.

The book alternates between a third-person segment that implies murderous intent and the main second-person narrative and jumps back and forth in time. In my mind it's the stylistic precursor to Bright Lights Big City crossed with the confused psychotic tone of American Psycho. I'm not sure what Stout was trying to achieve, but it is too well-written and the thoughts too pedestrian for the protagonist to be truly nutty but the plot is too little developed to pique a reader's interest. Worth checking out as an oddity, not so much as a reading experience. 2 s Vincenzo Iennaco111

Scritto in una retrospettiva seconda persona, il romanzo eviscera, nell'arco di due rampe di scale, ricordi e introspezioni di un ricco magnate dell'acciaio nella New York dei ruggenti anni Venti. Una lenta e inesorabile salita al proprio personale Golgota, d'altronde l'atmosfera patibolare ne rivela i sentori fin da subito. Forse questa scelta anti-narrativa (a mio sindacabile giudizio) è data dal voler scavare nei risvolti e nelle pieghe di un'esistenza, un tentativo di scovare incidenze o lacune dell'arbitrio e del destino. Certo ognuno potrà trovarvi tutte le proprie domande e risposte del caso. Di certo c'è solo che questo romanzo, a suo tempo, fu un totale insuccesso e il buon Stout voltò pagina e diede alla luce il suo pargoletto piuttosto in carne Nero Wolfe. Retrospettivamente parlando, dietro a un successo c'è sempre un'insuccesso. Amanda Himes230 16

What a disappointment! I was so excited to find a Rex Stout novel I haven't read before, but this one is a long way from the delightful Nero Wolfe / Archie Goodwin novels that made Stout famous. The protagonist is deviant (he finds a 10-year-old sexually appealing, and they go on to have a relationship) in ways that had me putting the book down 20 pages in. Yuck.This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full reviewabandoned Erin214 12

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