If you have read his book "On Writing," he has a small biography that parallels this book in nature. The storyline and the details were intriguing. The only distraction from this was his constant potty mouth. He must have needed filler to flush (not flesh out the book. I do not know if that is a recent phenomenon or if they all are that way. The movies are not that way.
This is one story with a few rest spots that make some think it is a series of shorts. Do not attempt to read this out of order, as each relies on knowledge of the former. The first phase, about the "Low Men", is the only real supernatural section. And as he points out, it is the moral environment around the story that makes the supernatural scary. In this phase, he also does a dissertation book including "The Lord of the Flies." There are really close corollaries to "The Day the Earth Stood Still": a single mother, a kid named Bobbie, and a mysterious border. The second phase Deals with a collage life environment, which is a background for molding characters and characters. I do not want to tell too many details, as that is why you read the book. The third phase is broken into two parts, one a story of Willie during and after Nam, then the whole set of previous characters surrounded by death and near-death experiences.
The not-so-loose stories are ingeniously tied together by a certain object that travels throughout the times to serve as a catalyst and a conclusion.
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