This is a beautiful book in so many ways. Starting with the prose that fills its more than 200 pages, with poetic images that paint a picture much brighter than a simple story-telling could ever do, it makes its topic feel that much more like the eulogy that it is. The eulogy to innocence lost in the "Great" War, of disconnection lost to other people despite being surrounded by cities, about the abandonment of veterans, and their conflicted lives mired in PTSD and a desire to be back among their kin and camaraderie. It's about the displacement and reorganization of cities, and how this further isolates the already isolated, and it's about trying to move on in an uncaring universe. Though starting off slowly in New York City as one gets into the rhythm of the story-telling, it picks up marvelously on the train ride out West, and the main character Walker paints the letdown of the American Dream for those used and abused for a higher purpose unknown and unrealized.