I was really excited to get this as I read The Red Tent by her a while ago and found it very engaging. The structure of this is more like a sequence of short stories than a novel; I found the timeline a bit confusing at times but I liked the serial focus on individual characters with each chapter. One thing I didn't understand was that when Cornelius left Dogtown he was supposed to be its last resident, but weren't Oliver and Polly still in a house there?
I really liked the unsentimentally realistic depiction of how hand-to-mouth the characters' existence was, and how limited the options were for women who weren't in the protection of a family. Maybe because some of the most likeable characters (Judy, Easter, etc) end up on their feet, despite some of the gritty subject matter I found it quite upbeat in the end.