There's no doubt, David Means has some skills. He can move back and forth in time and point of view, like in the opening of 'Vows', and often his sentences have a subtle enviable balance to them. His details and insight, sometimes even his ideas, have definite depth. It's a shame he can't put it all together consistently. The main problem is that when he starts to drift he pretty much does everything he can so that he doesn't let loose, an academic and cynical approach that when he occasionally ignores creates his best moments of writing. And, like a stupid clock, that approach brings out a rote effete side every single time, frustratingly cannibalizing any unique artistry potentially present, and making sure that if you get the sense that you were wrong about it, very soon, in another sentence or so, at the pointless ending of a run-on, at another dreary swipe towards imagery or culture or teen sex or mental illness or self-pretense, you're going to go: "Yup, I was right all along. This guy sucks. He's good but he sucks."