To H C Mark (or whoever wrote the above comment): the author thanks you from his heart, especially the remarks about the quality of the writing, about which the reviewer Gardner says nothing. Unfortunately, reviewers often attempt to ingratiate themselves into the ranks of real writers like the ones he namedrops in his first paragraph. Gardner no doubt wishes he'd been in such company, at Veronica's wake, and takes it as an affront that a ne'er-do-well like the author could write something that surpasses Bourroughs and even his sister, whom Gardner calls "Veronica the great." Saddest of all was the mean-spirited remark about Veronica cutting her brother off out of self-preservation, and not because of a brain tumor. Here is a writer, Gardner, who will stoop to anything in order to raise himself above another writer. This poor sonofabitch will never know the kind of love Veronica and her brother had for each other, could not even comprehend it though it was narrated in loving detail in this book for several hundred pages, and I feel sorry for him. Gardner's churlish remarks cannot diminish this author though, because nobody could be as unsentimentally hard on Steve Geng as he is on himself in this book.
Thanks again, H C
SG