Category: Book Reviews

COMING SOON. MONTHLY BOOK REVIEW OF ONE BOOK READ DURING THE MONTH.

Book Reviews, Front Page

Scribbling Scrivener Reads: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

DH Hanni

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers was first published in 1940. The story takes place in an unnamed Depression-era Southern town and revolves around the lives of John Singer, Mick Kelly, Biff Brannon, Jake Blount, and Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland, a diverse group of all trying to survive life. We follow each character’s hopes and dreams, ups and downs, in heartbreakingly written narrative. The center of the group is the deaf-mute John Singer. Each of the other main characters gravitates toward him, frequently visiting him to unload their burdens and dreams.

John Singer, a man who starts the novel off living with his equally mute, though not deaf, roommate and best friend Spiros Antonapoulos. But circumstances cause the pair to be separated when Spiros is sent away to an insane asylum. It’s after this event that each of the other characters gravitate toward Singer, using him as an outpost to express thoughts and desires they can’t tell anyone else.

Overall, I loved this book. The characters were extremely fascinating and well-developed with the exception of one. The secondary characters are often just as well-developed as the main characters. The prose is lovely and McCullers does a fantastic job utilizing the setting to mirror each character’s journey. The book’s themes carry over to today showing a modern reader just how far we have or haven’t come as a society.

To me the two strongest, most interesting characters are Singer and Dr. Copeland. Singer starts the novel happily going through life doing his job in a jewelry store while his roommate, Spiros, who is also mute but not deaf, works in a candy store. They do everything together and it’s Spiros which gives Singer strength and is the one person he can communicate with. He believes Spiros understands him though the reader at times wonders if Spiros truly has full mental capacity.

When Spiros is committed, this sinks Singer into a depression and causes him to move into the boarding house owned by Mick Kelly’s family. It is here that we start to see the other characters gravitate toward him believing him to be a great listener (he is as he learned to read lips). Others speak to him, treat him as some kind of wise person, but he rarely speaks back. His only form of communication, besides the sign language he used with Spiros, is pencil and paper. Without Spiros, Singer’s emotions become pent up until he can let them out when he visits Spiros. Others trust him with their deepest thoughts and desires yet he trusts no one but Spiros.

My other favorite character is Dr. Copeland, the town’s black doctor whose patients are the black community. Through his work he sees the injustices, prejudices, and lack of opportunity which exists in his community. He tried to fight this by raising his own children to be as educated and socially conscience as him. Yet none of them show the same need for education and desire to fight. Instead they, like everyone else, work just to survive each and every day. They are simply too tired to fight and Dr. Copeland is too old and sick to fight.

Dr. Copeland is a hard man to love. His relationship with his children is strained. Yet despite his gruff manner, many of his patients have named their children after him. But he doesn’t see this as having a positive impact on the community. Dr. Copeland would rather see his patients and their children stand up and fight and work to improve their lives.

Through the doctor the reader is given a front row seat to so many social issues America still struggles with today. We see how difficult it is for the black community in the town to trust any white person as so many of the whites in the town look down upon them. But in Singer Dr. Copeland finds himself trusting a white person for one of the few times in his life believing he is understands the struggle. So he starts visiting Singer to vent his frustrations.

Jake Blount is one of the characters I find myself rather ambivalent about. He wanders into the town, a true vagabond, and spends the first few weeks of his time in town hanging out all day at the New York Café. At first he’s a drunk but eventually stops and begins work at the local amusement park. He fancies himself an intellectual, a communist, and indeed he is well read. His nomadic lifestyle gives the reader a broad glimpse into the Depression.

Like Dr. Copeland he wants to fight an oppressive system. Unlike the doctor, he has the energy to try. He tries a few times to rally his co-workers to protest and to educate them, but those efforts fail. Like the other characters, Singer is his outpost believing very much like Dr. Copeland that this is a man who understands. He has no idea Singer often can’t clearly read Blount’s lips enough to understand what he’s saying.

My two least favorite characters are Brannon and Mick Kelly. Brannon because I felt he was underdeveloped and really didn’t fit into the rest of the narrative. Most of his time in the novel is spent working at the New York Café which is in the same building as his home. He rarely leaves and this is the problem for me. Though his café attracts Singer, Blount, and Mick Kelly, overall he is disconnected from the world at large. Brannon comes across as almost void of emotion even after his wife dies. His point of view didn’t add anything to the story nor gave any insight into the other characters. He also has, by our standards, an odd affection toward Mick. It may very well be a fatherly instinct as he has no children of his own, but even Mick gets a creepy vibe from him.

My other least favorite character is Mick Kelly. She’s the only female main character and is the youngest. The middle child in a large, poor family she starts off the story as a tomboy. Mick is tough yet very motherly in that she is the primary caretaker for her two younger brothers though her mother is alive and well. As the novel progresses she transitions into what would be considered more ladylike mainly inspired by when Singer moves in. She develops this odd crush on him, stalks him, and waits for him to come home each day. It’s not made clear what the attraction because she’s often tongue-tied around him.

Unlike Brannon, she has some fascinating characteristics such as loving classical music even stealing away in the night to listen to music as it flitters into the open from people’s radios. She starts composing her own music and practices after school on a piano located in her school’s gym. But then a horrible accident forces the family into deep poverty and eventually she makes a fateful choice.

On a scale of one to five pencils I’d give The Heart is a Lonely Hunter four pencils. It’s heartbreaking and completely honest in its portrayal of a group of flawed people.

Book Reviews, Front Page

Scribbling Scrivener Reads: The Fifth Avenue Artists Society by Joy Callaway

DH Hanni

The Fifth Avenue Artists Society by Joy Callaway is an historical fiction novel set in New York City’s Gilded Age. It’s Callaway’s debut novel and is told through the eyes of Virginia Loftin better known as Ginny. Her family is highly artistic with each of her sisters, except one who’s a teacher, and her brother engaged in some sort of artistic pursuit. Ginny is a writer, one sister is a pianist, one sister is a milliner to New York’s high society, and her brother is a painter but works as a salesman. Over the course of two years the reader follows Ginny as she not pursues her dream of being a professional writer and becoming involved with a group of other artists but also the two men she loves: one her lifelong best friend Charlie, an illustrator, and John Hopper, the leader of the Fifth Avenue Artists Society.

What drew me to pick up the book was the title. Thinking the book would be about the artists society led me to believe it would primarily be Ginny exploring the beauty and pain of creativity and the high probability of drama a group of fellow creative types is bound to bring. That and the fact the main character was a writer although I tend to stay away from books where the main character is a writer. In my opinion it’s a little too convenient when a writer writes about a writer. But I gave this one a chance because of the artists society aspect.

Unfortunately the book wasn’t about the artists society or art. Instead it’s a rather poorly constructed love triangle with two underdeveloped love interests and a grating main character. Her first love Charlie literally shows up at convenient plot points and exits just as quick serving only to moan on and on about how he made a mistake. I have no idea why she loves him other than they grew up together. Ginny’s other love interest, John, is slightly more developed, however, his characterization is inconsistent and her wishy washy feelings toward him gets old very fast. For someone who supposedly wants a husband who will be supportive of her writing career she seems to not care when John demonstrates genuine support. She waffles between independent-woman-who-don’t-need-no-man to wanting nothing more than to be married. While I’m not opposed to romance or a book focusing on it, something not completely uncommon in historical fiction, why it bugged me in The Fifth Avenue Artists Society was how much Ginny and her sisters vacillate. Also, the way all the romances were developed felt forced and inorganic.

Actually pretty much everything in this book was forced and inorganic. The plot was forced and I had a giant problem with a plot twist thrown in toward the last third of the book. It didn’t make sense at all and comes out of left field. Yes, there are a few subtle hints to suggest something is afoot, but it doesn’t come across as natural. Also it throws off the tone of the book. It goes from a fluff, Little Women-esque piece to dark and serious which it fails at. Perhaps it fails because one of the people involved in the plot twist is a character who is in the background in one scene very early in the book.Or because the book is told through Ginny’s eyes she wasn’t there for the event which prompts the twist.

As I alluded to above, I had problems with the characters, in particular Ginny. Like so much of this book, her decisions and actions felt forced. I found her even more irritating after the plot twist. Without spoiling anything, I was incredibly angry with her as she couldn’t understand why her family was justifiably angry with a member of their family involved with the twist. She was mad at them for not understanding the possible other side of things yet she refused to see things from their point of view. All of the supporting characters are one dimensional and are shoehorned into the novel. There are a lot of them as Ginny comes from a large family and with virtually everyone paired off it adds more players to the mix. I don’t know if there was some restriction put onto Callaway by her editor or publisher, but there needed to be more room in the novel to develop the characters.

Since this is historical fiction, I’ll touch about the feeling of accuracy I got from the book. While Callaway certainly did her research, she mentions in her acknowledgements a bulk of the book is based upon her ancestors and includes some documents from her family’s history, the language used and attitudes of the characters comes across as period inappropriate. They didn’t feel modern, just not 1890s middle class and not from people whom frequently hobnob with the upper crust of New York society. Oddly enough it felt more like the 1920s in how people spoke and acted. I guess Callaway decided since all the characters are artists they aren’t going to act in line with societal norms. That’s fine. Believe me I don’t want or need cookie cutter and get tired of seeing characters fall into supposed norms in historical, it was just…off. But the way the characters dressed, the architecture of the time period, and other setting details felt very authentic. Callaway also references a lot of plays, pieces of music, popular authors and books, literary magazines, publishers, and historical figures the Loftin family would possibly have interacted with, and painters popular at the time.

Overall, though, I found The Fifth Avenue Artists Society by Joy Callaway to be disappointing. The characters weren’t compelling or consistent and the plot was boring and nonsensical at the end. On a scale of one to five pencils I’m giving it one and half pencils.

Book Reviews, Front Page

Scribbling Scrivener Reads: Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson

DH Hanni

Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson is the first book in the Thieftaker Chronicles. It’s an alt history, fantasy story which takes place in 1765 Boston. The main character is Ethan Kaille, a thieftaker which means people hire him to track down stolen property and return it to them. He’s not the only thieftaker in town as he has a rival in Sephira Pryce. However, their paths rarely meet as her clients are the upper crust of Boston society. While Ethan operates within the law and tries to avoid harming the people he captures, he does have a secret weapon: He’s conjurer. This means he casts spells. Since the story is set 18th century colonial America, being a conjurer is akin to being a witch and so the threat of being hanged or burned as one is very real. Yet a surprising amount of people know about Ethan’s abilities even though he doesn’t go around advertising it.

The novel starts with Ethan tracking down a jewel thief. After recovering the jewels and warning the thief to leave Boston ASAP, the next morning Ethan’s approached by one of the wealthier citizens of Boston to recover a brooch stolen off his dead daughter’s body. But Ethan is puzzled why he’s contacted when Sephira Pryce usually handles the more exclusive members of Boston. His new client explains Ethan was recommended by Pryce because of his abilities and something is off about his daughter’s death. When Ethan conducts a couple of spells, he quickly realizes that whoever killed her is an incredibly powerful conjurer for he or she has been able to cleverly disguise not only the cause of death, but also the signature color each conjurer has. Ethan realizes recovering the stolen brooch is irrelevant and something to throw off who the real killer is.

Solving murders is not Ethan’s area of expertise so initially he’s at a lost at where to start. Matters are not helped as Pryce and her goons beat him up several times as a warning to stick with just recovering the brooch, but he doesn’t listen and soon the killer stalks and attacks Ethan. Everyone from the deceased woman’s betrothed to Pryce to several others, including a couple of members of the Sons of Liberty, try to pin the murder on a known rabble-rouser. But Ethan doesn’t believe it as none of the evidence supports the claim.

I loved this book. Not only for the historical aspect of it, but how seamlessly the fantasy elements work within the world. It’s natural, not over done, and when spells are cast it’s not over the top. I also love how Ethan is not a super powerful conjurer. He’s got skills for sure, but admits more than once he doesn’t know everything and seeks help in another conjurer, Janna as she specializes in a different kind of conjuring. This makes the final battle between Ethan and the real killer more exciting because he struggles, racking his brain for any little trick he can use to gain the upper hand. The way conjuring is used is pretty neat. Each spell caster has essentially a ghost or guide that appears. Ethan’s happens to be a grizzled, middle-age man he refers to as Uncle Reg as guide doesn’t talk. But what he doesn’t say, he makes up for in facial expressions, and comedic moments. The reader gets the impression Uncle Reg is a reluctant guide and doesn’t care much for Ethan but those changes throughout the book.

Another thing I enjoyed were the characters. The villains are well done especially Pryce as she’s almost throwback, good old-fashion villain with her thugs and who enjoys what she does. I look forward to seeing more of her and Ethan’s interactions in the series. I appreciate Ethan is a straight up, pure hero. While he may come from a privileged background, he’s done things in his life, criminal things, he has paid a hefty price for. It’s easy to feel sympathy for him and is the kind of character one wants to keep reading about. Also he has moral limits when it comes to conjuring, but is forced to push and cross those during the course of the book. Ethan is definitely not the brooding hero type that personally I’m getting a little tired of seeing. Another I also like about him is that while he does try to keep his abilities secret for a variety of reasons, word still gets out no matter how careful he is.

The supporting characters are also wonderful. From Ethan’s kinda best friend Diver to his girlfriend Kannice to his sister Bett to the minister-in-training Mr. Pell and everyone in between, it’s a cast I can’t wait to see more of. Relationships are complicated, but not needlessly so. And while life is certainly hard and times are difficult with riots protesting the Crown and the Sons of Liberty making a name for themselves, these people aren’t depressed which sometimes I see in books set during transitional time periods.

The world of Thieftaker is vivid and the reader can tell lots of research went into bringing pre-American Revolution war Boston to life. Again, everything in the book is just natural even when incorporating real life characters, such as Samuel Adams, into the narrative.

I honestly found little to complain about with this book. When pressed I guess I did notice some of the descriptions of when either Ethan or the real killer would use their power seemed repetitive. And sometimes I admittedly did get lost as to what exactly was going on and how people were able to do what they were doing. But that’s probably more on me as the reader rather than a defect of the writing.

Overall I give Thieftaker four pencils out of five and will definitely be picking up the next books in the series.