"In fact, Hale’s novel is so stuffed with allusions high and low, so rich with philosophical and literary interest, that a reviewer risks making it sound ponderous or unwelcoming. So let’s get this out of the way: “The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore” is an absolute pleasure. Much of its pleasure comes from the book’s voice. “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style,” Humbert tells us, and Bruno certainly obliges. There is a Bellovian exuberance befitting a Chicago-born autodidact. (Bruno calls himself “the chimp of the perverse” and labels a pre-verbal exchange of grunts and shrieks a “nonversation.”) Every first-person narrator creates himself out of words, but this process is particularly acute in Bruno’s case, since possession of language is the only thing that qualifies him for human consideration, especially after acts of violence for which he would otherwise be put down. Like Scheherazade, he tells his story in order to stay his execution."