City of Bohane

Even though it meets my definition of true science-fiction, I gave up on Irishman Kevin Barry's new novel City of Bohane, but I did like this bit of description about how the place where you live affects your personality: "too little has been said, actually, about living in windy places . . . when a wind blows in such ferocious gusts as the Big Nothin' hardwind, and when it blows forty-nine weeks out of the year, the effect is not physical only but philosophical . . . it is difficult to keep a firm hold of one's consciousness in such a wind . . . the mind is walloped from its train of thought by the constant assaults of wind . . . the result is a skittish, temperamental people with  tendency towards odd turn of logic," and it makes me wonder how different a person I would be if I was born in Argentina . . . would I have many lovers? be able to dance? wear leather pants? walk around with a rose between my teeth? . . . unfortunately, I will never know . . . there is no escaping the fact that my genes were forged and tempered in that crucible known as Central Jersey.