John West’s Lessons and Carols is a book of experimental and genre-defying fragments that chronicle the author’s relationship to addiction, beauty, faith, literature and his new daughter. The individual segments which make up the book range in length from a few sentences to over a page. Some narrate moments in the author’s life, while others provide brief images, a description of a moment in an arboretum, a record of a short conversation had just before leaving the room, a few phrases describing Christmas. Their tone is prosaic as well as poetic.