SOURCE: A review of The Book of Evidence, in Bloomsbury Review, May/June, 1990, pp. 2-3.

In the following review, Sattler asserts that The Book of Evidence is about the disintegration of its protagonist Freddie Montgomery.

"Well, Well, That's the advantage of jail, one has the time and leisure really to get to the heart of things," says Freddie Montgomery at one point during his confession of murder which comprises The Book of Evidence. Through this sometimes seemingly random rambling, characterized by minute expansion on a relatively simple string of events, emerges the substance of Freddie's life.

Freddie, a thirty-eight-year-old husband, father, failed son, and onetime scientist, travels aimlessly, never losing a sense of alienation. He imagines that a cosmic mistake placed humans on the earth and put the real earthlings somewhere else: "No, they would have become extinct long ago. How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in...