Carol’s Comments June 2023
Hello Everyone! Welcome to another issue of Carol’s Comments. Over the last eight months, I selected an eclectic assortment of fiction that explored many types of literary genres that normally don’t appeal to me.
I finally decided to read the bestselling novel Where the Crawdads Sing after watching an intriguing and thought-provoking interview with Delia Owens, the book’s author on CBS Sunday Morning last Fall. Owens’ debut novel centers on Kya, a young girl abandoned by her mother at age six to live almost entirely alone with a frequently absent and abusive father in the North Carolina marshland,
Part coming of age novel and part crime fiction, the book begins 1952 and alternates with a second storyline set in 1969 which focuses on the murder of Chase Andrews, a young man that Kya stands trial for killing. Reminiscent of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the novel’s narrative would be better if it concentrated more on Kya’s struggle to survive virtually alone in the North Carolina marshes for nearly twenty years rather than the very contrived murder trial subplot.
Despite its flaws and minor plot inconsistencies, Where the Crawdads Sing, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick is a wonderful escapist read for anyone interested in Southern literature, coming of age or crime and mystery fiction.
I love historical fiction- especially those set in England between 1890-1945. After I saw a positive review in The New York Times Book Review about Joanna Quinn’s first novel, The Whalebone Theatre, I knew I needed to read it. I immediately placed a hold on it at the River Park Branch Library.
Quinn’s debut novel revolves around the aristocratic Seagrave family set between 1919-1945 primarily at Chilcombe, the family’s ancestral estate in Dorset, England. The book’s first section focusing on the time between 1919-1920 provides essential background information about the Seagrave family. For example, the oldest son and heir Jasper Seagrave’s wife Annabelle dies in childbirth when their daughter Cristabel is born in 1916. A few years later, Jasper re-marries Rosalind, a much younger woman who has a second daughter Florence, nicknamed Flossie. Tragedy soon strikes again when Jasper dies in a freak riding accident in October 1920 when his eldest daughter Cristabel turns 4. Then after Jasper Seagrave’s death, his younger unambitious brother Willoughby inherits the family fortune. He quickly marries Rosalind and they soon have a son Digby. Cristabel is thrilled and treats her cousin Digby like a brother.
The novel’s second section set between 1928-1938 drags a bit because it primarily centers on twelve-year-old Cristabel’s discovery of the beached whale and transforming its skeleton into the Whalebone Theatre.
The last and best section of Quinn’s novel takes place between 1939-1945. Now young adults, headstrong Cristabel and her cousin Digby both become British secret agents on separate missions in Nazi occupied France. Once the plot shifts to World War II and its profound effect on the entire Seagrave family in England and France, the storyline became so compelling I couldn’t stop reading.
The Whalebone Theatre is very captivating and realistic because not all the principal characters survive World War II. Those that do are irrevocably changed by their wartime experiences. They ultimately transform themselves by creating different and more fulfilling life.
Although many reviewers, especially in The New York Times compared Quinn’s novel to Brideshead Revisited, I think the book resembles Downton Abbey mixed with a smidgen of E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End.
After finishing The Whalebone Theatre, I achieved a personal reading milestone. According to the SJCPL database, I read 100 books in 8 years! Wow!
A Read with Jenna Book Cub selection and New York Times 2022 100 Notable Books winner,The Whalebone Theatre is definitely a contemporary fiction essential and will surely become a classic. I highly recommend it to everyone especially readers who love historical fiction.
Over the past three years, I realized that Kate Morton, one of my favorite authors, hadn’t written a book since The Clockmaker’s Daughter published in 2019. Then in April while browsing through the New York Times Book Review, I spotted an interview with Morton where she revealed that she had recently published Homecoming, a new novel she had written in Australia during the pandemic. I quickly checked out a copy at the library.
Morton’s long-awaited new bestselling novel features two storylines. The first, set in 1959 Southern Australia, focuses on the Turner Family murders. The second plot centers on 40-year-old London journalist Jess Turner-Bridges who returns to Sydney, Australia in 2018 when her beloved grandmother Nora becomes seriously ill. While staying at her grandmother’s home Darling House, she soon discovers that her family has a direct link to the Turner Family Tragedy that happened almost 60 years ago,
Jess learns detailed information about the Turner Family Tragedy when she finds a book in her grandmother’s library entitled As If They Were Sleeping by American journalist Daniel Miller who was visiting Southern Australia during the murder investigation in 1959.
The 1959 narrative is the better one because the plot is more riveting and the characters are more fully developed especially when it intertwines with the 2018 storyline.
Homecoming’s plot is very uncharacteristic from Morton’s previous novels mainly because the book has a modern day setting and is a contemporary crime drama rather than historical fiction. I really had trouble sympathizing with any of the characters-especially the ones in 2018 - particularly Jess and her grandmother Nora. Furthermore, while reading Morton’s novel, I thought that the plot had too much repetition especially about the 1959 Turner Family murders. The book would have been more succinct and enjoyable for the reader if the novel had been edited better by cutting about 150-200 pages from the narrative.
Despite its plot flaws and rather long length, I still recommend Homecoming mainly because it revealed a different angle to Kate Morton’s storytelling skills.
The books reviewed in this blog can be found at most local public libraries. My readers in St. Joseph County, Indiana can visit the St Joseph County Public Library’s web site at sjcpl.org for additional information. Thanks for reading! See you all next time.
