The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time: 06/08/18

The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time by Steven Sherrill is the sequel to The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break (2000). M has moved away from the Lucky-U mobile home park and is now in the Allegheny mountains, working at a Civil War reenactment park.

M is living in a hotel that allows for bartering. He does odd jobs and gets a room and homemade food. And sometimes he goes to battle, although he's awkward on the battlefront.

I really was ready to settle into another quiet thought piece comparing an itinerate life to being trapped in a labyrinth. This book, though, mixes things up by giving M a makeshift family in the form of Holly and her brain damaged brother, Tookus.

The original story was the literal Minotaur settling in a rural town along a blue highway because it was the closet thing he could find to his labyrinthine prison. Here he is attempting to assimilate by finding himself a family. Separately, there is the sibling dynamic having gone so far off road to end up in the a forgotten motel at the edge of the Allegheny mountains, and there is the Minotaur, trying to find his way home by getting further off the main road. Together, though, if they really are to become a family, then their collective power over the road — over space and time — is greatly diminished because their goals are completely at odds.

Two stars

Comments (0)