Bitter’s novel is a massive onion of layers. Digging her sharp dagger, peeling away layer after layer, the author pokes and prods at government, religion, intolerance, bigotry and just for the fun of it, a little sexual repression. Bitters allows us to laugh with Elmer, cry a little with him and triumph as he struggles to come to grips, not with a new life, but with himself.
Author Alan Black
