Like Trees, Walking: Ravi Howard. I'd never paid much attention to Mobile, AL, until March of 1981, the year Michael Donald was lynched. In my naivete, I thought this country had come a long way in terms of race relations and that those things didn't happen anymore. The Donald murder forced me to reassess my thinking. I continued to follow the story until one of the murderers was executed in 1997. I've thought a lot about the obvious impact of this horrific crime on the community but not a whole lot about how it affected individuals. Howard's novel is about the part of the story I never really considered. It's the story of two brothers, told through the eyes of a high school student, Roy. The older brother, Paul, finds Donald's body, and Roy, who works for his father in the mortuary business, helps with the funeral. Howard's deliberate slow pacing is effective in establishing the book's tone, and the specter of the Atlanta child killings hangs quietly in the background, unobtrusive but clearly having an impact on the mindset of the characters. Sometimes, however, Howard's overemphasis on detail reminds you that this is a first novel. It's as if he's been taught that to properly evoke a time and place you need to get the details exactly right, so the Mobile-Press is never just referred to as "the newspaper"; it's always the Mobile-Press. It's also clear that this novel was extended from a short story; there are scenes that don't carry the story along and could have been left out -- a lot of funerals I didn't really need to attend. Those are nitpicky criticisms, however; overall, Like Trees, Walking is a moving story about race, murder, and what happens to individuals when justice is a long time coming.
Showing posts with label novels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novels. Show all posts
Monday, March 19, 2007
1981
I haven't really been taking all this time reading The Thirteenth Tale; I interrupted it to read The Nazi Officer's Wife and Like Trees, Walking.
Like Trees, Walking: Ravi Howard. I'd never paid much attention to Mobile, AL, until March of 1981, the year Michael Donald was lynched. In my naivete, I thought this country had come a long way in terms of race relations and that those things didn't happen anymore. The Donald murder forced me to reassess my thinking. I continued to follow the story until one of the murderers was executed in 1997. I've thought a lot about the obvious impact of this horrific crime on the community but not a whole lot about how it affected individuals. Howard's novel is about the part of the story I never really considered. It's the story of two brothers, told through the eyes of a high school student, Roy. The older brother, Paul, finds Donald's body, and Roy, who works for his father in the mortuary business, helps with the funeral. Howard's deliberate slow pacing is effective in establishing the book's tone, and the specter of the Atlanta child killings hangs quietly in the background, unobtrusive but clearly having an impact on the mindset of the characters. Sometimes, however, Howard's overemphasis on detail reminds you that this is a first novel. It's as if he's been taught that to properly evoke a time and place you need to get the details exactly right, so the Mobile-Press is never just referred to as "the newspaper"; it's always the Mobile-Press. It's also clear that this novel was extended from a short story; there are scenes that don't carry the story along and could have been left out -- a lot of funerals I didn't really need to attend. Those are nitpicky criticisms, however; overall, Like Trees, Walking is a moving story about race, murder, and what happens to individuals when justice is a long time coming.
Like Trees, Walking: Ravi Howard. I'd never paid much attention to Mobile, AL, until March of 1981, the year Michael Donald was lynched. In my naivete, I thought this country had come a long way in terms of race relations and that those things didn't happen anymore. The Donald murder forced me to reassess my thinking. I continued to follow the story until one of the murderers was executed in 1997. I've thought a lot about the obvious impact of this horrific crime on the community but not a whole lot about how it affected individuals. Howard's novel is about the part of the story I never really considered. It's the story of two brothers, told through the eyes of a high school student, Roy. The older brother, Paul, finds Donald's body, and Roy, who works for his father in the mortuary business, helps with the funeral. Howard's deliberate slow pacing is effective in establishing the book's tone, and the specter of the Atlanta child killings hangs quietly in the background, unobtrusive but clearly having an impact on the mindset of the characters. Sometimes, however, Howard's overemphasis on detail reminds you that this is a first novel. It's as if he's been taught that to properly evoke a time and place you need to get the details exactly right, so the Mobile-Press is never just referred to as "the newspaper"; it's always the Mobile-Press. It's also clear that this novel was extended from a short story; there are scenes that don't carry the story along and could have been left out -- a lot of funerals I didn't really need to attend. Those are nitpicky criticisms, however; overall, Like Trees, Walking is a moving story about race, murder, and what happens to individuals when justice is a long time coming.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
You Suck
You Suck: A Love Story: Christopher Moore: Jodi and Tommy from Bloodsucking Fiends are back for another round. Tommy wakes up to discover that while he was out, Jodi has turned him into a vampire because she loves him and doesn't want to be alone. Understandably, Tommy is conflicted about this. There are some upsides to being a vampire after all -- immortality alone being one of the biggest. Because Tommy can no longer go out during the day, he has to find a minion to do typical vampire minion things -- renting apartments, keeping watch over the vampires while they are asleep -- he finds this person in a 15 year-old Goth girl, Abby Normal. Her diary entries alone are worth the price of the book; she made me laugh out loud. As always in Christopher Moore's novels, there's an assortment of supporting characters running around causing mayhem -- the Animals (the stoner grocery stockboys Tommy used to run with), Blue, a hooker who dyed her skin blue, William, the homeless man with the large cat, and Elijah, the vampire who turned Jodi. The action doesn't feel overcrowded and the humor doesn't feel forced. I loved You Suck -- it really was funny.
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