Keenan's prose, simultaneously dense, brooding and yet lyrical, was ideal for the painful introspection of An Evil Cradling.
Unfortunately, as travelogue it's as frisky as a lame pack mule. Every shimmering desert, every mountain pass, inspires Deep Reflections which tell us much more about Brian than about the place through which we are vicariously travelling. It is beautiful, of course, but inappropriate. McCarthy's straightforward journalese is much more reader-friendly, but the juxtaposition of the two never takes off. That's the problem with this book of two voices: it never finds its own.
