The novel had one of the worst covers I’ve ever seen on a professionally published book. It’s solid black with the title in white text. I suppose they could have gone that extra step and had the title in black text, but the effect was pretty much the same, it could have been a book about anything or nothing. Add to that a page count that made it feel like a dictionary when you picked it up which inspired you to promptly set it back down. But once I got around to reading it, several years after it came out,…