The cover of A Key to Treehouse Living advertises its "unorthodox" approach to storytelling (in the form of alphabetical glossary entries) and features quotes from respected writers such as Padgett Powell and Joy Williams. I expected a formal experiment along the lines of Dictionary of the Khazars, with a plot and narrator akin to Huckleberry Finn.
The alphabetical organization is a gimmick that doesn't add to the book. The story remains fundamentally linear, and at one point the narrator implies that he wrote it in order. The headings are not strictly alphabetical and often strain to fit the scheme; for example, the section about Salisbury Steak is headed "Loose Meats: Salisbury Steak" to get it into the proper position, and many sections have arbitrary-seeming headings such as "Careful Entry of Neglected Forts."
The narrator is supposed to be a self-educated teenager living largely on his own in the South. However, Reed fails to craft a distinctive voice or point of view for his protagonist. I regularly came across thoughts that didn't seem realistic for the character (such as the discussion of l'appel du vide filed under "Mental Daddy of the Self") and did not come across thoughts that revealed a unique perspective.
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