3 Stars
Arthur
Pepper is a 69-year-old widower living a quiet, routine-filled life in
York. A year after the death of his wife
Miriam, he decides it’s time to sort her clothes. He discovers a gold bracelet with eight
charms, a bracelet he has never seen. He
decides to track down the story behind each charm; in his travels he is taken
far outside his comfort zone and ends up learning about Miriam’s life before
she married him, but he also learns a great deal about himself and finds new
purpose.
The premise
of the story is rather unbelievable.
Arthur and Miriam were married for forty years, yet he knows nothing
about her life before their marriage?!
That a husband and wife might not know everything about each other’s
lives is credible, but that he knows virtually nothing calls into question the
closeness of their relationship.
Another
weakness is that everything comes so easily for Arthur in his quest. While sorting Miriam’s shoes, he remembers a
neighbour’s story “about a pair of boots she’d bought from a flea market and
found a lottery ticket (nonwinning) inside.”
Obviously, he finds something inside one of Miriam’s boots. Later, he decides to look around Miriam’s
childhood home because “It might spark a memory.” And of course, “A memory began to creep back.” Naturally, he meets someone who says,” ‘I do
know someone who knows about gold bracelets.
He’s got a shop not far from here.
We could take your bracelet to him, if you like.’” A quest usually has some challenges, but his
are few.
There’s a
great deal of telling, rather than showing.
After the story of each charm is uncovered, Arthur learns something;
every event becomes a teachable moment.
What he learns is explicitly detailed as if the author fears the reader
might not be able to grasp Arthur’s insights.
Arthur even tells an acquaintance, “’I am learning more about myself . .
. With each person I encounter, with each story I hear, I feel as if I am changing
and growing.’” At times the summaries go
on and on: “What he had discovered were
things about himself. He hadn’t expected
to act so bravely. . . . He offered relationship advice to a stranger in a café,
and when he spoke he hadn’t sounded like the silly old man he told himself he
was. He confronted a past love rival,
when he could have walked away . . . His openness and acceptance of a young man
with a drug problem and his dog had surprised him. These were qualities that he didn’t know he
possessed. He was stronger and had more
depth than he knew and he liked these new discoveries about himself.” For someone who was clearly not
introspective, Arthur becomes very reflective.
This is
obviously a debut novel. A reader can imagine
the plot graph: this happens and then
Arthur learns a lesson. Then this person
will help him with the next charm and he will learn another lesson. And what the protagonist realizes is not
exactly profound: “All was not as glossy
as it first seemed” and “it’s the things you say and do that people remember
you for” and “it was possible for memories to shift and change with time. To be forgotten and resumed, to be enhanced
or darkened as the mind and mood commanded.”
This book
will appeal to readers who like sentimental books with an uplifting
message. This is certainly a feel-good
book with a life-affirming message. It will
be compared to other books like Major
Pettigrew’s Last Stand, The Storied
Life of A. J. Fikry, and The Unlikely
Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and there are certainly similarities, but The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper
lacks the polish of the others. It has
its charms, but it is not exceptional.
Note: I received an ARC of this book from the
publisher via NetGalley.
