We may understand its mechanisms, but Hannaham’s bumper-car narrative still astonishes … Carlotta’s internal dialogue is always breaking into the third-person narrative midsentence, punctuation be damned. But her stream of consciousness keeps pace with the frenetic action of the story; her interjections feel seamless after a few pages … Hannaham’s mix of humor and horror works because of Carlotta’s interjections in the narration, which have the effect of tempering catastrophe and reimagining the mundane. Notwithstanding her in-your-face tragedies, past and pending, Carlotta’s voice is captivating. Throughout the novel, she rediscovers Brooklyn and doesn’t withhold on the changes she confronts … In his fiction, Hannaham has demonstrated an abundance of empathy for the sexual minorities he writes about … we often circle the Same Old Anger, Usual Frustrations and Somebody Oughtas, but her idiosyncratic wit injects freshness and pathos to the issues … At a time when families with trans and gay children feel persecuted by state governments, Hannaham makes Carlotta heroic … Don’t let the title of this wondrous novel fool you. Hannaham cares deeply about Carlotta. From a mash-up of perspectives, he writes like a guardian angel. Or — as our narrator says of Carlotta, when she’s feeling elated — ‘like a drag queen doing a layup.’
