BiblioAddict

On past stuff, a plague of love (and doves), depressing horror stories, horror stories that depressingly don’t horrify, and dancing with the Devil all night long…

Ok, I know I pulled a MIA with BiblioAddict for the past month or so. I have more than a few excuses, but it isn’t anything you haven’t heard before, and you probably rolled your eyes back then too. So let’s skip all that. Whenever he’s accused of wrong-doing, my brother likes to say, “Come on, that’s all in the past. You’re talking about past stuff.” (According to him, there’s a two-day statute of limitations on actions he can be called out on.) So let’s take a page out of my brother’s book and not talk about all that past stuff… unless, of course, you want to talk about what I’ve been reading while I was ducking and dodging the thought of how long it had been since I’d last posted. Books, now that we can talk about.

Firstly, I managed to get my hands on and finish Louise Erdrich’s new book The Plague of Doves. I lay this purchase solely at the feet of NPR, which sucked me in (as always) with their revealing discussion on the novel with the author. I hadn’t had the slightest interest in this novel before the interview, but by the end I couldn’t wait to get off of work just to buy it. And I loved it. I’ve read exactly one book by Erdrich (Love Medicine) for a college course, so this is the first time I’ve had leisure exposure to how Erdrich crafts her generational stories like interlocking puzzle pieces, where every character is connected to another – be it through blood or circumstance.

At times, I was tempted to pull out a pen and paper to craft a family tree, because there are more than a few bloodlines which play a large role in the novel. But I was too carried along by the sheer propelling power of the story to even bother. I thought the mystery at the heart of this novel – a family is brutally murdered and four young Indians are wrongly accused and hanged for the crime – was resolved in such a moving and intelligent way that it brought tears to my eyes.

But what I enjoyed most about The Plague of Doves was that it was more than a mystery. In fact, more than anything, I thought it was about love: love for family, love for land, love for tribe, love for music, young love, old love, destructive love, healing love, forgiving love, and all the other forms of love which are as various as there are people who practice it. The book begins with love: a young boy and girl fall in love at first sight and run away together on the very same day. And the book ends with love: an old woman talks about love for the town that saw her birth and will likely witness her death. I thought this was a beautiful novel which I would recommend to just about anyone.

I also finished (finally) Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts. I thought it good, though not as good as most people seem to think. It was, I confess, a little too dark for my taste. And I’m not sure if more than one of the stories were scary so much as they were depressing. Of course, this collection was all about Hill expanding the definition of what qualifies as “horror,” and by that token he did succeed. After all, I never would have called a story like “Pop Art” horror before. Odd, yes. Incredibly sad, yes. But horrific, probably not. But reading it within the context of the other stories forced me to re-evaluate just how and what I think of horror, what I typically expect from my horror, and how those expectations can work both for and against me. Many of stories within 20th Century Ghosts defied my expectations, and even if they sometimes did it in ways that I didn’t particularly appreciate, I commend Hill for writing stories that stuck with me long after I turned the last page.

At least, I think, Hill’s short stories showed more purpose and direction than A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans. Billed as “psychological thriller in the tradition of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History–with shades of The Exorcist” I was expecting something a little more scary and a little more mysterious. A reviewer on Barnesandnoble.com summed it up perfectly:

It was certainly a page turner however, it didn’t live up to the reviews. I was hoping to be scared, but I was let down by the fact that it was more intriguing than scary.

And to boot, there were a number of loose ends which I thought were insufficiently tied up. But, to be fair, it wasn’t terribly written. The problem was that by the end of the novel, I was left wondering why I’d bothered in the first place. From beginning to end, the novel simply didn’t go anywhere. There should, at least, be some sort of progression from beginning to end in any novel. A Good and Happy Child felt as if it was walking in circles rather than moving forward. In the beginning, we wonder if the protagonist has a legitimate complaint or if he’s just crazy. In the end… we wonder if the protagonist has a legitimate complaint of if he’s just crazy. I wondered, so… why did I read this book?

Now I’m not saying that every question raised by a novelist has to be answered at the conclusion of the book. But what I am saying is that if you’re going to raise those questions and not answer them, then at least raise them in such a way that gives me enough food for thought – put a bit of meat on those bones for me to chew on. Give me some metaphor, some philosophy, some psychology, some something. Don’t just give me a mildly chilling story. Now, in all fairness, maybe I missed something and I’m being unfair. But, in case I didn’t, my reading time is incredibly too crowded for me to put down a novel thinking, “So what? Why did I just waste my time?” It’s this reader’s opinion that if you want something creepy which will also give you much food for thought, read The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson. There’s a dance with the Devil you won’t forget anytime soon.

There. Now there’s a return I can be happy with. There are a few other books I’ve managed to finish during my unofficial BiblioAddict break. As usual, reviews are, hopefully, to come soon but, you know me, I make no promises. And then we have to talk about all the good stuff I’m currently reading, which is all just as yummy as it could get. I must say, the break was very much needed, but it’s good to be back.