storytelling

In her second novel, Palmer moves from New Orleans in the fifties to the borderlands between the US and Mexico, and into the present day. It's quite a jump, but she lands cleanly.

The title here is thematic and concrete, both. James Reece is a man in that gray area between youth and solid middle age; he was born to a Mexican/Indian father and a blond California mother and brought up by adoptive white parents. He makes his living as a border guard sending illegal immigrants back to Mexico, again operating in the borderlands, always second guessing himself and where he belongs.

The novel holds loosely to the conventions of a mystery -- or multiple myteries -- about his own past, his parents, his father's death -- and the discovery of a the body of a little boy in his adoptive father's flower fields. What struck me most forcibly about this novel is the strength of the main characterization. James Reece is a complex and conflicted man, but within about fifty pages I felt I had a real grasp of the way he thought and the things that moved him.

It's hard to imagine the kind of research that must have gone into this novel, as the circumstances and setting are so foreign to me personally. Yet the details have the gritty feel of authenticity, due in part to prose that approaches the lyrical in passages. I should say that it does feel at times as if Palmer is on the verge of loosing control of a detailed and complex plot -- the scene of the fire in the canyon comes to mind. Also, there are many crucial characters here, almost too many to develop fully. The two that I would have liked to see more clearly were Mercedes (James' wife) and Richard Serrano, the Coyote who preys on the illegals he shepards over the border to the extent of robbing them of their shoes.

Posted by at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is Karen Palmer's first novel, and it promises good things to come from her. Set in New Orleans in the fifties, it follows three people through a few turbulent days. Each of them has misstepped badly and caused harm to themselves and the people they care about most in the world; each of them struggles with the certainty that they will never be able to make amends. Through a series of every day circumstances, their day intersects and then becomes intertwined.

The novel is beautifully written, clean and clear and bright in its prose, but it's also a really good story. Of the three main characters, I was most engaged by Harlan Desonnier, a Cajun just released from prison and Glory Wiltz, a white nurse with a young son who is separated from her husband, a black musician. Father Frank -- a Catholic priest dealing with a loss of faith -- is the least well drawn of the three characters, though I still haven't been able to figure out why he doesn't quite work for me.

This novel has a flow and rhythm that feels almost effortless, and the resolutions were striking for their simple elegance. There is not so much a happy ending here as a thoughtful and a hopeful one. One final note: Glory's relationship to her son strikes me as pretty much perfect, and reads as though the author understands the emotional complexities of motherhood from a deeply personal source.

Posted by at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(link via Sillybean).

Jim Macdonald is by all accounts an excellent teacher, and now there's this thread he started at the AbsoluteWrite on-line forum. It looks to me very worthwhile. Lots of solid advice, including a spattering of useful laws, ala:

Watt-Evans' Law: There is no idea so brilliant that a sufficiently ham-handed writer can't make an unreadable story out of it.

Feist's Corollary to Watt-Evans' Law: There is no idea so stupid that a sufficiently talented writer can't make a readable story out of it.

My only quibble with Uncle Jim (actually, I don't know much about him -- I may be older than he is, but I'll call him Uncle anyway; I also answer to Auntie Ro) is his ten pages or about 2,500 words a day. That's just not the way some people work. Me included. But he knows that; he starts out with a proviso that says, basically, what any honest teacher of writing must say (and I paraphrase): take what works for you and leave the rest.

Posted by at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today I received my copy of the Catalan translation of Homestead, which tickles me no end. Catalan is spoken by something over ten million people. Its relationship to Spanish is approximately the same as the relationship of Dutch to German.

You can learn a little about Catalan here (also the source of this map; click for a larger version); check out the Catalan version of the page as well.

Posted by at 3:23 PM | Permalink

Here's a lovely passage from Pride and Prejudice, which serves as an example of Austen's perfect pitch in matters of dialogue. It's also in omniscient POV:

"How very ill Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy,'' she cried; "I never in my life saw any one so much altered as she is since the winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again.''

However little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented himself with coolly replying that he perceived no other alteration than her being rather tanned -- no miraculous consequence of travelling in the summer.

"For my own part,'' she rejoined, "I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants character; there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I never could perceive any thing extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether, there is a self-sufficiency without fashion which is intolerable.''

Persuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not the best method of recommending herself; but angry people are not always wise; and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the success she expected. He was resolutely silent however; and, from a determination of making him speak she continued,

"I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty; and I particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, 'She a beauty! -- I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time.''

"Yes,'' replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but that was only when I first knew her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.''

He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself.

The editorial comments (highlighted) come from the omniscient narrator -- Austen herself. The tone is indeed a little bit sharp, but Austen was sharp and in this particular instance, she gives her readers what they want (because, of course she has made them want it) -- the officious, pretentious, cruel Miss Bingley finally talks herself into a scolding, and a particularly painful one at that.

The other thing to point out here is the masterful balance between direct and indirect dialogue; some of what Darcy says is summarized, because it's Miss Bingley we need to hear just then, without distraction. When he speaks up finally, he is given the floor with devastating effectiveness.

Posted by at 9:07 AM | Permalink