A Man Who Eats the Heart is a strange book. There’s no other way to describe it. It’s not strange in a Keri Hulme kind of way, or an Elizabeth Knox kind of way: it’s alternative-American-view-of-Noo-Zealand strange.

Josh Greenberg’s debut tells the story of Nathan, a small-town burglar who works for a pair of antique dealers, the terrifying Hoch twins. Nerdy Nathan breaks free by hooking up with a former child TV star, and they head off to go fly-fishing in New Zealand with the eccentric guide Barry Trasch - a reincarnated Crump.

There’s a lot of autobiography in this book. Just like his protagonist Nathan, author Greenberg dislikes flying, and travelled to New Zealand on a freighter. Greenberg is also a keen fly-fisherman, but I don’t know if his real sea journey involved any kinkiness between the ship’s Captain and First Mate.

A Man Who Eats the Heart is certainly unusual, and for a first effort, surprisingly accomplished. Greenberg’s turns of phrase are occasionally sublime, and the locations are inventive. But I put this book down unable to tell whether or not it was any good. Maybe it’s just me, but I was curiously detached.

Greenberg won the 2003 Fulbright and Adam prizes for A Man Who Eats the Heart, which was then known as The Game of Nods. He’s since returned to Grayling, Michigan, and is at work on his second novel. I’ll be keeping an eye out for it. If the promise he’s already shown is fulfilled and the characters are fleshed out, it should be a cracker.