When you take on the surreal you must clearly watch out for its near and merely embarrassing neighbours, triteness and banality. Richard Brautigan is not, on the whole, half watchful enough….

[The plot of The Hawkline Monster is one] that leaves one decidedly out of thrall much of the time. And as for Gothicism: as oddities, this lot scarcely packs much of a frisson. "What does supernatural mean?" Cameron asks. "It means out of the ordinary", one of the Misses Hawkline informs. But, though events in The Hawkline Monster can certainly range far out of the ordinary, the more bizarre they come the flatter tends to be their impact. The dull, accepting tone is largely to blame, and there is little to be said for it as a narrative means except perhaps that it can welcome the ordinary quite unhectically. It is extremely liberating to find everyday things...