Review of THE SLEEPING CAR PORTER by Suzette Mayr

3.5 Stars 

This novel won the 2022 Giller Prize for Fiction so my expectations were high; unfortunately, those expectations were not met.

R. T. Baxter is a young Black man who works as a train porter in 1929.  There’s a short chapter tracing his trip from Toronto to Winnipeg, but the majority of the book focuses on a Montreal to Vancouver trip which is waylaid by a mudslide outside of Banff.  Undernourished and sleep deprived, he struggles with disturbing hallucinations and completing all his duties. 

I appreciated learning about the working conditions of Black porters.  Blacks were lucky to have these jobs, but a sleeping car is, as Baxter describes it, a “luxurious prison.”  Except for short breaks to nap, a porter is always on call.  He must buy meals from the employer, is financially liable for stolen linens and towels, and is at the mercy of passengers whose complaints can result in demerit points.  Demerits are given for “disloyalty, dishonesty, immorality, insubordination, incompetence, gross carelessness, untruthfulness.”    At one point, Baxter receives two demerits for insolence, but he isn’t told which passenger complained.  He must be on a lookout for undercover spotters who are hired to report employee infractions.  If a porter accumulates too many such points, he is dismissed.

Of course, the porters also face racism.  Baxter, for example, is addressed as Boy and George.  One passenger even asks him to sing and dance.  He cannot, however, react in any way; he must remain cheerful and deferential.  Baxter comes to think of himself as “a clicking Robot, created to serve . . . a whirring automaton.”  Because Baxter is gay, he is especially vulnerable since homosexual acts were illegal.   

There is not much of a plot.  Very little happens.  The mudslide doesn’t happen until halfway through the book.  The focus is on Baxter’s unrelenting exhaustion and his constant fretting about receiving demerit points and losing his job.  When there is a major development, it is quickly resolved so tension is not maintained.  There are touches of humour in the nicknames Baxter gives his passengers:  Pulp and Paper, Punch and Judy, Spider, and Blancmange. 

What I also found surprising is that the development of the protagonist lacks the depth I expected.  We know details about Baxter and his life (i.e. he loves science fiction, he wants to attend dentistry school, his parents objected to his effeminate manner), but it’s difficult to name many personality traits. 

This is not a bad book, but it didn’t resonate with me.  Its strong suit is the historical details; otherwise, it is not exceptional.

Book Recommendations for Christmas Lists

 Here's my latest article (book recommendations for Christmas lists)  written for The Madawaska Valley Current:   https://madvalleycurrent.com/2022/11/27/book-recommendations-for-christmas-lists/

Book Recommendations for Christmas Lists

At this time of year, I seem to do a lot of writing:  Christmas cards, a Christmas shopping list, menus for holiday get-togethers, and that very important letter to Santa.  In December I also compile a list of favourite books read during the past year.  Here are some of those favourites from 2022 which you might request from Santa or gift to the book lovers on your list. 

Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz

This is a magical novel.  Sally, a 17-year-old girl who has escaped from a clinic where she was being treated for anorexia, meets Liss, a woman in her forties who lives alone on a large farm.  Sally helps Liss with various tasks on the farm and slowly a friendship develops between the two.  As their backstories are revealed, it becomes obvious that both are in need of healing.  Written in beautiful prose, this uplifting book reminds us of the beauty of human connection and the healing power of nature.

The Sea Between Two Shores by Tanis Rideout

The Stewart family from Toronto is invited by the Tabé family to the South Pacific island of Vanuatu to attend a reconciliation ceremony for their ancestors.  The families discover that they are connected by devastating losses they have both suffered and by the actions of their ancestors.  This complex novel examines grief and the true meaning of reconciliation.  It will leave you thinking about the actions of Canadians in the past and our behaviour in the present.  (I also recommend this Canadian author’s other novel, Above All Things, a fictionalized account of George Mallory’s third attempt to conquer Mount Everest, in 1924, interspersed with the viewpoint of his wife as she awaits word about her husband.)

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

Based on the true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, this book examines antebellum horseracing, the sport of white privilege relying on the exploited labour of black horsemen.  Through sections set in the present, it also emphasizes that racism has not been eradicated.  Even those with no interest in the sport will find reading this novel an emotional journey:  anger and sadness are felt in equal measure. 

Fall by West Camel

Aaron and Clive Goldsworthy are 62-year-old twins who have been estranged for over 40 years.  Aaron is the sole occupant of Marlowe Tower, a 1970s housing development designed by their mother in London.  Clive, a successful property developer, wants to turn the tower into luxury flats, but Aaron refuses to move.   When two women who lived in the tower in the 1970s move back in, the brothers must confront what happened the summer of 1976 and its aftermath.  The title is perfect because there are physical falls and fallings-out.  People’s lives and the housing estate are falling apart. Reading the novel is a process of slowly watching everything fall into place.  And readers will fall in love with this extraordinary, multi-layered novel.  

Whisper of the Seals by Roxanne Bouchard

This is the third of the Detective Moralès series set in Canada’s Gaspé Peninsula.  Tasked with monitoring a seal hunt, Simone Lord, a Fisheries Officer, boards a trawler.  Meanwhile Det. Moralès is investigating the savage beating of a teenager.  As expected, that case leads to the trawler where Simone finds herself in increasing danger from the antagonistic crew.  Readers who enjoy detective series might want to start with We Were the Salt of the Sea and The Coral Bride, the first two books.  Though these are less polished, they develop characters and establish their relationships. 

 

The Precious Jules by Shawn Nocher

Ella Jules has spent 32 years of her life in the Beechwood Institute whose clients are intellectually challenged.  Lynetta, who has been her caregiver for all that time, has applied to be her guardian because the institute is closing.  Then Ella’s parents file with the courts to have Ella live with them, though their other adult children want to convince them that this is not a good idea.  This family drama is heartbreaking, heartwarming, and thought-provoking. 

 

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

This is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read.  Mungo Hamilton, a 15-year-old living in Glasgow in the 1990s, is on a weekend fishing trip to an isolated loch with two men his mother met at an AA meeting.  The trip is intended to toughen him up.  A second storyline shows Mungo’s family life and describes the events leading up to the fishing trip.  The novel, which examines homophobia in an intolerant culture, is raw and gritty.  A couple of years ago, I recommended Shuggie Bain by the same author; it examines the complex relationship between a child and an alcoholic parent.

 

This is How We Love by Lisa Moore

Newfoundland is one of my favourite places to visit, and I love novels set in that province.  This one is set in a hospital in St. John’s where 21-year-old Xavier is fighting for his life after being badly beaten and stabbed twice.  His mother sits by his bedside as the snowstorm of the century (January 2020) rages outside.  While we wait to see if he will survive, the reader gradually learns what led to the attack and is introduced to Xavier’s extended family and friends and their backstories.  The book examines various kinds of families and how people show love in different ways.  

 

Complete reviews of all 12 titles mentioned (and many more) can be found on my blog at https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/.

 

Happy Holidays!   Happy Reading!

Review of THE TREES by Percival Everett

 4 Stars

I came across this title on the shortlist for the 2022 Booker Prize for Fiction.  It’s a powerful genre-mixing book.

Money, Mississippi, is the town where in 1955 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched after being accused of making suggestive remarks to a white woman named Carolyn Bryant.  In 2018, Wheat Bryant is found mutilated and murdered with the corpse of a black man found next to him.  The corpse disappears, only to reappear twice next to two other murder victims.  Black officers from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the FBI arrive to investigate.

The novel is a hybrid genre; it is social commentary that has elements of a police procedural, comedy, and horror.  The book examines the legacy of lynching and police shootings, a legacy which Americans tend to ignore.  The detectives who come to assist in the investigation add much of the comedy with their banter.  And the names given many of the white characters are hilarious:  Cad Fondle, Pinch Wheyface, Hickory Spit, and Chalk Pellucid.  Considering the subject matter, the humour might seem inappropriate, but it both provides some brief relief and emphasizes the seriousness of the issue.  Off-hand comments like blacks joining the police force “’So Whitey wouldn’t be the only one in the room with a gun’” reveal so much.  An element of the horror genre is added with the apparent rising of the lynched dead to exact revenge.

The title is a reference to the trees from which lynching victims were hanged, but it also suggests family trees.  The sins of the fathers have been passed down to their descendants.  Not much has changed.  The whites are unabashed rednecks, wearing red caps and spewing racial epithets.  And racists are found everywhere, even in positions of power.  For instance, President Trump delivers a speech in one chapter, a speech which leaves no doubt of his racism. 

Whites are stereotyped as incredibly stupid bigots.  This portrayal is intentional:  it mirrors the one-dimensional way blacks were perceived.  The author gives the whites no sympathy; again, this reflects how blacks received none.

It is not difficult to determine the author’s intention:  “’Everybody talks about genocides around the world, but when the killing is slow and spread over a hundred years, no one notices.  Where there are no mass graves, no one notices.  American outage is always for show.  It has a shelf life.’”  America is as racist as it has ever been.  There have been no consequences for the killings of blacks.  Such killings are seen merely as an academic matter:  “’One hopes that dispassionate, scientific work will generate proper outrage.’”  Of course, it doesn’t.  The book imagines what would happen if there were a reckoning for such atrocities. 

Chapter 64 is chilling.  It consists of a list of names of people who were lynched; the list goes on for pages:  “’When I write the names they become real, not just statistics.  When I write the names they become real again.  It’s almost like they get a few more seconds here.’”  Chapter 102 is revealing; it lists places where lynchings/shootings have occurred.  Though Mississippi is repeated most often, 20 other states are also mentioned. 

This book is shocking and devastating and should generate outrage at racism both past and present. 

Review of WHISPER OF THE SEALS by Roxanne Bouchard

 4 Stars

This, the third Detective Joaquin Moralès book, is a compelling read.

There are two plots.  In one, Fisheries Officer Simone Lord, who has been transferred to the Magdalen Islands, is tasked with monitoring a late-season grey-seal hunt aboard the trawler Jean-Mathieu.  The unsavoury crew is antagonistic towards her, and it soon becomes apparent that the hunting of seals is not the only goal of the trip.

The second plot focuses on Det. Moralès.  After his divorce is finalized, he reluctantly goes on a cruising and cross-country skiing holiday around the Gaspé with his friends, Érik Lefevre and Nadine Lauzon.  In her role as a forensic psychologist, Nadine is investigating the savage beating of a teenager.  She encourages Joaquin to take an interest in the case.  As expected, that case leads to the Jean-Mathieu. 

From the very beginning, there is a constant sense of danger.  Simone is the only woman on a boat with a drug addict, a former poacher with a desire for revenge against fisheries officials, a misogynist, and an enigmatic man with a hidden agenda.  When she arrives on board, one of the men thinks, “Bitches like that, they deserved nothing but a good whack on the back of the head with a hakapik.”  Then there are the dangers of venturing out during a winter storm which has all the other boats taking shelter onshore.  And more than once the treacherousness of walking on the ice during the hunt is mentioned.   Throughout, the reader is aware of how isolated the trawler is and how slim the chances of a rescue if necessary.  Of course, Simone is the most isolated since she doesn’t know if there is anyone she can trust.   

Foreshadowing is abundant.  When the trawler sets out, “a hefty wash made a rolling wake.  It was sharpened to a blade by a frothing sea turned bloody by the crimson sun . . . Atop the raging waves, were flat clouds, their carmine bellies stacked heavy amidst layers of grey in a harsh, foreboding sky.”  Blood is mentioned often:  “slipping in the viscous pools of blood” and “red trails of blood streaked behind them” and “the deck flooding with blood” and “overalls glistening with blood” and “blood, guts and skulls were all that was left.”  The ending, therefore, though emotionally devastating, is expected.  Describing the atmosphere as ominous is certainly not hyperbole. 

Besides serving as a physical danger, the stormy weather serves as a metaphor for Joaquin and Simone’s emotional states.  The detective has just ended a 30-year marriage and he is floundering.  He is grieving a loss and fears a life of loneliness.  The Fisheries officer has lots of time to think, and her thoughts reveal her regrets and fear of not finding an enduring love.  Both of them are sensitive despite their tough exteriors.   

Readers should be warned that the seal hunt is graphically described.   Reading about the killing of the animals is difficult:  “Even though the creatures were dead, the hunters were still required to crush their skulls with the hammerhead side of their hakapiks.”  The author, however, takes pains to point out that this technique, though gruesome, is “the most effective and pain-free method of killing seals.”  She also emphasizes the need for culling; a sealer says, “’And things will get tricky pretty quickly if there’s a decline in sealing.  We’re harvesting barely ten percent of a population of hundreds of thousands.  If we don’t keep their growth in check, they’ll eat all the fish and crustaceans.’”  I learned that the actions of activists could actually endanger the seals:  a group “had daubed the seal pups with red paint, supposedly to protect them from the hunters.  But the smell of the paint had driven the mothers away, and thousands of baby seals had starved to death.”

Part of the book’s appeal for me was the setting.  I’ve toured the Gaspé more than once and visited the Magdalen Islands last year.  I fell in love with the archipelago.  Reading this novel with its references to specific places was a nostalgic trip for me.

I’ve read all three books in the series.  Though I found the first book (We Were the Salt of the Sea) a faltering start, the author found her stride in the second book (The Coral Bride).  And this third one is accomplished.  I’m hoping there will be more books to follow. 

Review of THE TRAGEDY OF EVA MOTT by David Adams Richards

3.5 Stars 

I won’t miss the opportunity to read a new novel by David Adams Richards since I’ve enjoyed so many of his books like Darkness (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2021/06/review-of-darkness-by-david-adams.html), Mary Cyr (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2018/05/review-of-mary-cyr-by-david-adams.html), The Lost Highway (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2017/09/archival-review-lost-highway-by-david.html), and Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2015/07/from-schatjes-reviews-archive-incidents.html ).  This latest one, however, left me less impressed.

Set in the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, the plot focuses on a community where the asbestos mine owned by the Raskin Brothers is the main employer.  When reports emerge about the health effects on workers, the brothers want to stop mining asbestos, but the government does not allow them to shut down.  Albert, a nephew, who lives on the proceeds of the mine, becomes involved in protests against his uncles.  Choices Albert makes as a young man have a devastating impact on him and many others, especially after two criminal brothers, Mel and Shane Stroud, become involved and further complicate matters.

Shortly after I began reading, I decided to make notes on the various characters and their connections to each other.  There are many characters and their stories are intertwined so it is important to keep track of their relationships; the backgrounds of these many characters are also significant.  The title is appropriate in that Eva Mott is the person whose life is touched by virtually all the other characters. 

Eva, however, is not the only person to suffer tragedy.  There are many who suffer because they are deprived, oppressed, and exploited.  The message seems to be that “suffering is the human condition” so the book is anything but a light read.  For instance, there are eight deaths that are the result of murder or criminal negligence.  Sexual assault, drug addiction, and blackmail all feature in the narrative.  The book includes infidelity, theft, beatings, heartbreak, loneliness, family disintegration, suicide, government ineptitude, environmental degradation, and swindling.  The book ends with the promise that the world is filled with love, there is “a fulsome chance at a new life, a new beginning, a new and holy destiny, here as well as in all the world,” and “honour follows virtue like a shadow,” but the number of characters who are loving and virtuous is far outnumbered by those who are motivated by self-interest and manipulate others.  And the virtuous seldom receive their just rewards.   

In many ways, the book reads like a critique of many groups.  Academics are a target:  “he had a trait that was widespread among professors:  he was petty and jealous.”  Politicians are portrayed as hypocrites; the government won’t let the Raskins close the asbestos mine even after reports emerge about the effects of asbestos.  Scientists “wore white coats and told white lies.”  First Nations people have suffered much for too long, but the author believes there should be less talk about “how much they were owed and how much was taken”; a Mi’kmaq argues his people must “decide their own lives by their own conscience” and says, “’I know you want to protect the land but remember some of us exploit it just as much as others.’”  Protestors, whether environmentalists, women’s rights activists, or supporters of First Nations claims, are described as an “ignorant army . . . ready to clash by night.”  The author even takes a swipe at his detractors who have dismissed him as “a journeyman writer from New Brunswick . . . [whose writing shows a] backward regionalism.”  The author seems angry at everyone.

I wanted to like this book, but it is full of countless tragedies, despair, and darkness.  A re-reading would perhaps result in an appreciation of its layers; unfortunately, I cannot see myself re-reading it very soon.  It is too depressing, and I need to find something more uplifting after this heartbreaking tale.

Review of THE PEARL SISTER by Lucinda Riley

3 Stars 

This is the fourth book in The Seven Sisters series to which I am listening on my morning walks. 

Six girls were adopted by Pa Salt, an ultra-wealthy man.  After he dies, each daughter is given a letter and a clue to her true heritage.   Each daughter’s journey is the subject of a novel.  The Pearl Sister is the story of the fourth daughter, CeCe.

CeCe needs to go to Australia to find her family, but she stops in Thailand for an extended stay where a mysterious man named Ace befriends her.  When she resumes her travels and continues to Australia, she learns about Kitty McBride and the Mercer family whose enterprises included pearling in Western Australia.  She also discovers a possible connection to the Aboriginals; her exposure to their culture reawakens her artistic creativity.

The structure is the same as that of the previous books.  There’s the present where CeCe sets out to find her origins which are somehow connected to Kitty Mercer.   The narrative in the past focuses on Kitty McBride who leaves Scotland, marries into the Mercer family, and moves to Broome with her husband who is in charge of the family’s pearling interests.  Kitty encounters indigenous peoples and hates how they are regarded and treated by the European colonists.  As with the other books, there’s more focus on distant ancestors like a great-great-grandmother than on a mother.  Wouldn’t CeCe be more interested in her mother’s story?  In the novel, her mother’s story is almost an afterthought.

CeCe is not my favourite sister.  She comes across as whiny.  She has had a privileged upbringing and has been able to travel the world.  Yet she is always feeling sorry for herself and complaining how no one understands her and her art.  She does seem to experience some personal growth, but I found I didn’t really care.  One thing that bothered me is the portrayal of her dyslexia which seems to be equated with a lack of education:  CeCe doesn’t know the word genocide and has never heard of Darwin?

As with the other books, I enjoyed the historical information I gleaned:  the pearling industry in Australia, Aboriginal culture and art, and the mistreatment of the Indigenous Peoples (which has so many unfortunate parallels with Canada’s treatment of its First Nations peoples).  I found myself researching the art of Albert Namatjira. 

What I did not enjoy is the forbidden love stories and the love-at-first-sight tropes which appear in all the books.  Coincidence is certainly overused in this novel so that it is difficult to suspend disbelief.  A child is found in the Outback by a relative unaware of his existence?  A pearl which is cursed keeps cropping up, even in CeCe’s timeline?  And the entire section set in Thailand seems irrelevant and could be omitted. 

As I’ve stated in previous reviews of this series, I will continue listening to these books on my morning walks because they provide pure escapism that allows my easily distracted mind to wander.

Review of THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT by Maggie O'Farrell

 4 Stars

I’ve always loved Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues like “Porphyria’s Lover” and “The Bishop Orders his Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church” so I was definitely interested in Maggie O’Farrell’s latest novel which is based on “My Last Duchess.”

The novel begins after Lucrezia de’Medici has been married for about a year to Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara.  She has been brought to a hunting lodge and she is convinced, “He has brought her here, to this stone fortress, to murder her.”  The rest of the novel alternates between this present and the past beginning with her childhood and adolescence in Tuscany. 

Just like dramatic monologues are character studies, this novel is a character study of both Lucrezia and Alfonso.  From birth, she is a spirited wild child, restless and rebellious.  She is also curious, intelligent, imaginative, and artistically gifted.  She grows to become a strong-willed, passionate young girl who is interested in everyone and everything.  She is very attuned to the natural world.  The rigid expectations of women are like a cage in which she is trapped.

Alfonso is best described as “’Janus, with two faces, two personalities.’”  He can be courteous and considerate, but it soon becomes obvious that he can be unbelievably cruel and has a need for control:  “He will always need to triumph, to be seen to win.”  His comments are very revealing:  “’when I ask something of you, I expect you to do it.  Without delay.  Without hesitation’” and “’Do not . . . be foolish enough to interrupt me when I am speaking.  Now or ever.’” 

Lucrezia’s father has a menagerie and he adds a tigress which fascinates Lucrezia.  When she sees it, she is convinced she “had never seen anything so beautiful in her life” and she feels great empathy for her, “the sadness, the loneliness, emanating from her, the shock at being torn from her home.”  Of course, the tigress is a metaphor for Lucrezia who finds herself trapped in a marriage far from her home.  She thinks of her spirit as a “beast – muscled and brave” which “lives somewhere deep inside her.”  And Alfonso tells a physician, “’There is something at the core of her, a type of defiance.  There are times when I look at her and I can feel it – it’s like an animal that lives behind her eyes.’” 

An issue I had is that these metaphors are rather heavy-handed.  Lucrezia’s wedding gown, described as both a cage and “a fortress of silk,” is “poised to encase her body.”  Then there’s a dead bird which flew in a window but couldn’t find its way out.  Alfonso takes her hand and “imprisons her fingers in a strong, cool grasp.”  “The ends of her hair are trapped between his torso and the mattress.”  Lucrezia hates the pattern on a dress because it makes her “feel confined.”    The references to Iphigenia being lead to a “duplicitous altar” by her father mirror how Lucrezia feels about her father’s arranging her marriage.  What are also heavy-handed are the descriptions.  Lucrezia dreams and daydreams and dissociations are described in detail.  Some of these become tedious, especially as they continue for paragraphs. 

What I did enjoy is the direct and tangential references to “My Last Duchess.”  Alfonso, the “duke with an ancient name” gifts her “a white mule.”   In the portrait, the Duchess’ face has a “depth and earnestness” so the duke calls the painting “a wonder.”  The portrait is “covered at all times in heavy velvet drapes.  No one is permitted to pull back the curtain and look upon the Duchess’s face without the Duke’s express permission.”  The poem makes reference to Neptune taming a sea-horse, and in the novel Alfonso becomes “a river god, a water monster . . . seizing her with his webbed fingers, rubbing his scaled skin against hers, subduing her with strength gained in aquatic depths.”

A major theme is the hidden depths that lie beneath the surface of people and things.  Lucrezia becomes interested in underpaintings, the hidden paintings that lie beneath.  She also likes to look at the reverse side of embroidery which displays “the labour needed to attain the perfection of the finished piece.”  She learns to hide her true emotions behind a façade, just as her husband can look calm and poised though he may not feel this way.  Her portrait shows her physical appearance but “also excavates that which she keeps hidden inside her.”  It could even be said that Browning’s dramatic monologue serves as an underpainting to the novel.

Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and Judith left me in awe (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-of-hamnet-and-judith-by-maggie.html).  Though The Marriage Portrait has some weaknesses, I still highly recommend it.

Review of THE MAGIC KINGDOM by Russell Banks (New Release)

 4 Stars

This is my first book by this American author and I found myself fully engaged with it, perhaps because I recently visited the Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire where I learned more about the Shakers. 

The book is structured as a transcript of audiotapes recorded by Harley Mann, 81, in 1971.  A retired real estate speculator, Harley focuses on his childhood in the early 20^th century, especially his time with the New Bethany Shaker Colony in the part of Florida where the Magic Kingdom Theme Park at Disney World is located.  The commune is led by Elder John Bennett who becomes Harley’s mentor and Eldress Mary Glynn, the community’s spiritual advisor.  Honesty, hard work, equality, and celibacy are guiding principles of the Shakers, which Harley follows until he becomes totally obsessed with Sadie Pratt, a consumptive patient with ties to the Shakers.  Hurt and angry after a tragic event, he takes an action which has a devastating impact on the Shakers and his own life, leaving him with “a lifelong guilty conscience.”

Harley is an interesting character.  After a very difficult time following the death of his father, the Shakers provide him with stability.  He is fed, clothed, and given shelter and an education, though he is expected to work for the commune without remuneration.  He is asked to live by the principles of the Shakers, though he need not become a Shaker; at the age of 21 he would be able to decide whether his future would be amongst the Shakers or in the outside world.  He, however, reacts to a devastating loss by “[tearing] apart the close-woven fabric of love and trust that had kept New Bethany together.”  The reader will feel some sympathy for him, but will also be very frustrated with him.  Of course, Harley pays a heavy price for his betrayal.

The novel’s title is perfect.  It is not so much a reference to Disney World as it is to “the Shakers’ magic kingdom” which Harley helps destroy.  He doesn’t realize what he had until it’s gone, and then spends his life trying to regain it.  His purchase of New Bethany land, his building of a model of the village, and his narration of what happened are clearly symbols of that desire.  One obsession is replaced by another?  On the other hand, Disney’s Magic Kingdom is described as “a state-sized sinkhole to the American dream.” 

I did wish there were less repetition in the novel.  The narrator is an elderly man who, because of his lifelong regret, is motivated to tell his truth.  The “author of this book” describes Harley as a “garrulous old man fond of digressions and personal asides who . . . could be repetitive” so a publisher asked the author to “edit, cut, and when necessary overwrite, annotate, and summarize the content.”  There is little evidence of this author’s input, except for some footnotes, certainly not in terms of cutting Harley’s repetitions. 

Despite some needless repetition, I enjoyed this historical novel.  Anyone interested in the Shakers will learn a great deal.  I loved Margaret Atwood’s comment about the book:  “The Magic Kingdom confronts our longings for Paradise; also the inner serpents that are to be found in all such enchanted gardens.” The book also examines how our pasts explicate our presents.  This is both an entertaining and enlightening read. 

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of BLACKWATER FALLS by Ausma Zehanat Khan (New Release)

 3 Stars

I’ve read and enjoyed all the books in Ausma Zehanat Khan’s Rachel Getty/Esa Khattak series so I looked forward to this first in a new series.  Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

A Syrian teenager, Razan Elkader, is found murdered in Blackwater Falls, a suburb of Denver.  Lieutenant Waqas Seif brings his team of the Community Response Unit to investigate.  That team includes Detective Inaya Rahman.  They discover that two Somali girls have gone missing though the local sheriff has been slow to act.  Is there a connection among the girls?  Is Razan’s murder a hate crime or is it connected to her and her father’s activism? 

A lack of clarity on one issue bothered me.  Complaints against the sheriff have resulted in the Community Response Unit taking over the investigation, but the sheriff continues to be involved.  The sheriff “refused to turn over paperwork, acted as if he hadn’t been removed” and leads a town hall meeting indicating “he didn’t intend to be sidelined.” 

How is the CRU’s investigation different from one that would be conducted by regular police detectives?  Other than the fact that they seem to act/react very slowly, there seems no difference.  More than once, searches are conducted in a way that would not be considered legal.  Things that should be researched immediately are not until much later.  Except for Mercedes, Razan’s friends are not interviewed until much later?  Obvious things like surveillance video are not checked? 

There are some events that require explanation.  Inaya left an untenable situation in Chicago to become a member of the Denver Police Department’s Community Response Unit.  Her family moved with her to Blackwater Falls?  Two girls can disappear but there are only rumours about them, and it takes Inaya some time to even find out their identities?  Why would a man engaged in criminal activity wear a name tag identifying him in any way?  A board member of a company would be concerned about “his bottom line”?  We are told that “the Abdi and Diriye families were meeting the detectives,” but then the husbands aren’t there?  The Abdi family consists of two sons, but the whereabouts of one son is never discussed?

The character of Inaya is developed since she will be a key player in the series.  She is stubborn, “as biddable as a musk ox,” and tenacious, but she is also reckless.  She wants members of the minority community to be handled with care and compassion, yet she often acts as a steamroller, jumping to conclusions about other people in the community.  Though she does not wear a hijab, she is described as religious.  She says things like, “’I’m accountable to my Creator’” and “She put her parents’ and sisters’ needs before her own, and it was a privilege to do so.”   Yet she is never shown in prayer until two-thirds of the way through the book?  What is emphasized is her difficult position, working within a system known for its systemic racism:  “She was a traitor twice over, too brown for the badge, too blue for her co-religionists.”

The investigations into the murder and missing persons’ cases are overshadowed by the author’s political views.  My views align with hers, but her approach is so heavy-handed that the narrative gets lost.  The number of stereotypes bothered me:  corrupt and prejudiced law enforcement, xenophobic Christian evangelists, and a MAGA-supporting, white supremacist, violent motorcycle gang.  Whites and Christians tend to be bad; brown/ black-skinned people and Muslims tend to be good.  It’s great that the perspective of minorities is provided, but I’d have liked more nuance in character portrayals. 

Why is it necessary to include a romance element?  The sexual tension between Inaya and Seif feels forced and awkward and just becomes tedious.  It’s just another element to distract from the cases, and there is so much already in the book:  characters’ backstories, police brutality and corruption, murder and missing persons’ investigations, Inaya’s mother’s attempts to find a husband for her eldest daughter, misogyny, Islamophobia, xenophobia, white supremacy, unionization attempts at a meat-packing plant, weapons manufacturing, and sexual assault.  These issues are current and important, but a focused approach on a few would be better than overwhelming the reader. 

I wanted to like this book more.  Some judicious revision would go a long way to improving its focus.   A novel from the perspective of a Muslim woman is so welcome but is it necessary to burden her story with so many of society’s ills? 

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.