Tower of Fools

Wow, that’s an awful lot of names. An awful lot of dudes. An awful lot of songs. And the protagonist is awfully gullible. Like three women, only one of which has any dimension at all, and even that is limited — even though the voice of the narrator is not linked to any of the characters who might be forgiven a backwards perspective as a character flaw. Upshot: The text is so low-density that you can ADHD Gothic you’re way into a brief fugue and come back to the story having missed nothing of consequence, but somehow the level of detail and text craft is enough to be decent company.

CN for period-appropriate (and forewarned on the cover) antisemitism, islamaphobic remarks, general xenophobia, torture and corrupt behavior by religious authority figures, misogyny, sexual assault.