This was one of the first books that taught me about subtext. Who is Alden Weer? Why does his memory work the way it does, going from room to room, calling up vignettes from the past? What is he not saying, in each of the stories he tells? What happens to the main character?

It really took five reads to pick out the threads and figure out that the end of one chapter is referenced only by omission in the next, that the planted oak tree is a gift to Alden and what happened when it fell, what name Vi picked out for the frozen orange juice blend, and how the short story "Changling" is a model for "Peace" in the ways that we are strangers to our own childhood.