The Fig Eater

Have any of you read The Fig Eater? I finished it over the weekend and can’t decide how much I liked it. Author Jody Shields wrote an atmospheric and moody novel that captures a city in a time of transition, but she keeps the reader at a distance and commits the Fiction 101 sin of telling a lot rather than showing it. Characters’ relationships didn’t always feel genuine, and the climax left me unsatisfied. All this should add up to a bad review, and yet the book itself somehow didn’t feel unsatisfying.

I’m curious what others thought, so please let me know if you read it.