The Nirvana Blues

Rating:
Summary: "Nichols is the best American author since John Steinbeck"
Review: A gripping American novel "The Nirvana Blues" captures the richness of the late 20th century. Nichols creates characters that nearly rival Steinbeck's Doc and the entire Joad clan. Nichols excels in both humor and human compassion. You don't know whether to laugh or cry. He is by far one of the best writers to come out in the last 30 years, "The Nirvana Blues" should be considered required reading for colleges and universities.

Rating:
Summary: An anticlimactic finish to a promising trilogy
Review: Normally, I prefer not to be a harsh critic, but I feel compelled, given the very positive review above, to offer my own appraisal. I have found THE NIRVANA BLUES to be a disappointment. Nichols' THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR is a well-crafted novel, and worthy of the praise (and even the Steinbeck comparisons) that it receives. The novel's characters display idiosyncracies that are both intoxicating and revealing. THE NIRVANA BLUES attempts to duplicate this, and yet its idiosyncracies, in my opinion, become irritating: more hijinx without substance. Furthermore, the erotic element to the story seems more self-indulgent than necessary. If you have read THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR, and are looking forward to the same quality in the rest of the trilogy, you may be disappointed as well.