The intersecting storylines are engrossing and the main and even more peripheral characters are all strongly delineated. At first, I thought the ending of the book was kind of shambling and inconclusive, but then I remembered the book’s title – “The Wreckage”. Just as Mercedes finds something important and concrete in the literal wreckage of her old home, all of the characters are striving to find something similarly real amidst the wreckage of their respective lives. The wreckage imagery is also echoed hauntingly in Wish’s experiences after the bombing of Nagasaki. The title of the book, in fact, satisfyingly encapsulates so much.