Book review: The Portable Veblen

IF YOU see squirrels as rats with bushy tails, here’s a warning: this review contains vermin (and nuts). 

However, if your every encounter with a squirrel is akin to a fairytale, then you’re going to love Veblen Amundsen-Hovda, the quirky protagonist in American author Elizabeth McKenzie’s utterly charming new novel.

We meet her in California’s Palo Alto, at the moment of her engagement to neuroscientist Paul Vreeland, spied on by a squirrel.