Fabulous writing about a repulsive topic: Would you read this?

Never has so much fine (sometimes too fine) writing been put in the service of such an unpleasant tale as in Gabriel Tallent's debut novel, My Absolute Darling. Tallent begins with a fabulous description of a cabin in the remote woods of Mendocino County, Cal., in which he describes every vine, root, and tendril of every weed that's working its way through the neglected, half-constructed woodwork. Then we meet the two living in this place, an early-teenage girl, Turtle, and her dad, a fully and totally repulsive character: menacing, slothful, alcoholic, verbally abusive, survivalist, paranoid, with an obsessive interest in weaponry and self-defense. The poor girl is struggling w/ schoolwork and is a general outcast - crudely rebuffs an offer of friendship from a perfectly nice and kind of hip classmate. Father called in for a counsel with school authorities - of course they're afraid of him - and he says he'll work w/ Turtle (he calls her "Kibble" - she has another  "real" name used in school, which I forget) on her homework and for the moment they let it go at that. We soon see that he abuses his daughter sexually, and in a later chapter that he literally tortures her w/ a knife. Whew. This is almost unbearable - and would maybe be more interesting if the dad weren't such a "type," if we were surprised by his abusive behavior. Tallent as noted is really effective at building a scene and at describing a setting; the narrative consciousness obviously is his and not his characters' - so as Turtle runs through a field she doesn't step on just "leaves" but "myrtle" leaves - of course, who knew? - and the leaves all have a color (adumbrated?) and an odor, etc. It's like a story narrated by a botanist! But not just that: he also has a profound knowledge of weapons and their use (in this case, the narrative consciousness is that of the characters), and it's such an ususual combination - guns and flowers - that we're drawn in and a little puzzled. Despite my abhorrence of some of this material, I'm curious and captivated and will keep reading unless or until the balance shifts and I want out.

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