I read in bursts, copying the snapshot design of the prose - brief sections dense with meaning.

I read, absorb, imagine, feel. I am guided by the pinprick of opening lines:

“I am writing to reach you…”

“Before I was Little Dog, I had another name…”

“It is a beautiful country depending on where you look.”

First person shifts suddenly to third, the present forcing the past: 

“The boy is six and wearing nothing but a pair of white underwear with Supermans patterned everywhere. You know this story.” 

The “you” is the mother but also the reader - we have come to expect the trauma that shaped his early days. How do trauma and beauty exist side-by-side?

I am halfway through and I read in bursts, copying the snapshot design of the prose.