Contrary to much favorable comment, I found this novel one of the worst I have ever read. The story might have meat, but it lacks the sensitivity, and perhaps poetic nuances demanded by the metaphoric, italicized leads into each chapter. My chief criticism is its literary "non-value". It seems to weave back and forth between implied depth and contrivance. What fragments of "wisdom" appear seem stilted. The "grits" torture does indeed seem invented, not real. The characters are unevenly developed. The author's movement toward insight does not succeed.