[6] Kirkus Reviews referred to the novel as a "rich, demanding, life-affirming masterpiece",[6] while Library Journal's Molly Abramowitz called it "a brilliant tour de force".

[5] Booklist's Bryce Christensen noted that the novel "makes heavy demands on its readers, compelling them [...] to find a context and meaning for the fractured perceptions and convoluted lives of the characters that confront them.

But the readers' struggle for meaning mirrors that of the characters as they wander personal labyrinths, desperately trying to recover and make sense of their dark individual and collective memories".

They ended their review by highlighting how "the reader concludes not with a sense of closure and reassurance but rather with a painful awareness of the unfinished tasks facing a long-beleaguered people.

His headlong, associative sentences, some of which go on for pages, mirror the characters' labyrinthine imaginations, memories, emotions and perceptions, which are all further complicated by the traumas of war".