Book Review: Broken Harbor by Tana French

**SPOILERS CONTAINED WITHIN**

A key thing that usually sells me on a book is what I would call a book's "vernacular." That the reader feels that this book couldn't happen any place else. The dialogue and setting has both an originality and a sense of history about it. This masterful owning of a story is obvious within the first four pages of Broken Harbor by Tana French. I wrote in my last review of her previous novel, Faithful Place, that I would eagerly snatch up her next novel because I so loved the writing, even if I didn't love the book. And I find myself in the same place with Broken Harbor as I did with Faithful Place: in lovelovelove with the writing and less than pleased by the end of the book.

At this point I've nearly given up looking for books that ultimately hit all of my buttons, but this book falls shorts in some critical ways. But first, the good part. The dialogue is amazing. I'm no slouch at writing dialogue myself, and this woman blows me out of the water. Not only is it smart writing, but the dialogue rings true to each character. All the characters sounds unique.

French is equally masterful at descriptions. I live in California and we have had our own boom/bust times, with a similar fallout in the housing market. Not an hour from my house the wholesale bulldozing of orchards went at a fever pitch until it stopped when the house of financial cards finally collapsed. And bankruptcies and the foreclosures and all the fallout from the machinations of venal Wall Street, unscrupulous bankers, and unethical builders began. I understand this so well, although my wasteland is characterized by former farms and not a rundown beach town. French does a picture perfect job at creating this land of broken dreams.

There is a beautiful parallel story between Scorcher Kennedy and the Spains, and how control can be one's savior and one's damnation. I think this is my favorite under thread in the whole novel. I would say that this is another reason why the ending didn't work for me. Because when Kennedy ends up planting evidence as a manifestation of how his control has finally broken down--for good AND bad--we actually don't need this scene. His behavior in his final interview with Conor Brennan demonstrates all too well that this man has crossed over his personal line from which he can't return. This book is about people crossing over personal lines from which they can't retreat.

The plot in this book is rather thin. It's primarily a psychological drama with a murder thrown in to give it structure. That's why when the book breaks down in the last third. This breakdown is profound, because it all hinges on how much you buy the psychological trajectory of these characters. If you don't buy it, then the novel won't work for you, and ultimately it didn't work for me.

As with Faithful Place, Ms. French tries to be too clever. This ending is meant to shock, and it doesn't shock so much as left me scratching my head. What? As opposed to, wow, I never saw that coming. I really didn't see it coming, so much so that I didn't believe it. There have to be powerful reasons why a mother kills her children, and Ms. French did not set this up. Which is also part of the problem. There are far too many crazy people in this book. The evolution of Pat's craziness is done so well. SO WELL. This is part of French's attempt to aha us. Because his craziness is front and center, then we're supposed to be so surprised when Jenny craziness is even more profound than his. Except that aside from portraying Jenny as a shallow and materialistic, we don't understand the leap from shallow and materialistic to murderer. The novel goes out of its way to portray this couple as nice and decent. We sympathize with Pat. His craziness breaks our heart. Her craziness doesn't. And, in fact, it's inexplicable and it doesn't make sense. Also, it's totally unnecessary. The last quarter of the book is a mess and I really don't understand why.

One of the things you do as a writer is to pull part other writers' material. It's part of the learning process, and once you start pulling apart other people's writing, then you find you can't stop. This has had the effect of undermining my reading pleasure and when someone gets it right, it has enhanced it. So, I finished this book and my sigh of displeasure was loud, to be followed by a "why?" She could have easily had Pat kill the kids, which makes sense given that she's laid the groundwork for his crazy, and then have Jenny discover that he killed the kids and she kills him. Conor races into the house, and Jenny asks him to kill her because she can't live with the fact that her children are dead at their crazy father's hand and it's her fault because in her manic determination to keep up appearances, she ignored Pat's decline into madness even as she saw it happen. THAT makes sense. Jenny's long-winded (it went on forever) explanation of that night left me cold and perplexed. And why didn't Kennedy obtain a warrant and be miked so that they could all hear her confession? Because then we wouldn't have had all this drama with the planting of the bracelet. Not only does this not make sense because a woman in her pajamas is NOT going to be wearing a charm bracelet, ahem, it's unnecessary. I can only surmise that French thought we needed a scene where we understand that Kennedy has crossed a line that he never thought he would cross. But we don't need this as an example of Kennedy's personal aha moment; that happened in his final interview with Conor Brennan

Psychological profiles in a psychological thriller have to be pristine. By that I mean the psychology of the characters IS the plot. If there is a glitch in the psychology, then the novel falls apart. Or doesn't work. It's too harsh for me to say that this novel fell apart. The writing here is gorgeous. I envy her so much. But ultimately the novel doesn't work because the psychology doesn't work, and I find myself in the same place I was a year ago: hoping that her next novel will be that perfect book that I know she can write.

Book Review: Tiny Beautiful Things

Life right now is, um, very challenging. I'm not going into details but suffice it to say, fucking hell. As is my wont, when life is pelting you with lemons, I retreat into the world of books. This has always been my refuge, and I suspect it always will be. I usually pick up Jane Austen when confronted with devastating life suckage, but I picked up this little gem instead. Hey, I has graphics!

I've been following "Dear Sugar" on the rumpus.net for many months. I can't give you an assessment of her recent success as the author of "Wild" as I haven't read it. All I can say is that "Tiny Beautiful Things" is a wonderful, wonderful book. Sure, this contains excerpts from her advice column as "Sugar," but to dismiss this as  "merely" excerpts from her advice column is to be nothing short of pedantic and snotty. For the writers who follow this blog, there are several letters that deal with writing and being a writer and what this means and what it SHOULD mean. This ALONE is worth buying this book. For others, revel in her writing. I did. She's the real deal. I loved her column, and I love this book. Highly recommended.

Sign and Damn

This is going to be another tough year. I feel it in my bones. I'm not going to get all personal here, but monumental changes are ahead.

On the writing front. I lost steam on that Pride and Prejudice pastiche, mainly because I formatted my way into a logistical hole that defeated me. I've heard from the book publisher that I contracted with that they can now format the book the way I want it formatted, so now I must shove my ass in gear and recontact them to get it up and out there. I'm very, VERY bad at the back end of the publishing front, and this is largely about confronting and dealing with minutia. I fail at minutia.

On the writing front: I am pounding out what I think will be an alternative take on a mystery. It's typically me. Snarky, funny, and little bitchy, and not too challenging mentally. I'm constantly torn between doing something that I can pound out and yet feeling that I could, if I really wanted to,  actually produce something big. Is this self-delusion at it's most delusional form? Perhaps. But. I honestly believe I'm capable of a bigger book. But bigger books take time. And much more effort. I have very little time. Working full-time is really sucky, but also this job now requires tons of editing and dredging up anything that is half-intelligent sounding at the end of a day editing engineering is almost impossible. Some of the stuff I edit I think, wow, this guy could get a Noble Prize. It's THAT sort of material. Which leaves me brain dead. And yet. I think I could write a bigger book.

Baby steps. (1) get Austen pastiche self-published; (2) get bitchy alternative mystery published; and (3) Think. Think. Think.

Another Sad Chapter Closed

It is with great sadness that I write that Ed Kaufman, the former owner of the mystery bookstore, "M is for Mystery" has died. Ed announced his retirement last Christmas at the annual MWA and SINC holiday get together. It was obvious from the announcement and the singular lack of enthusiasm by the new owner of the space that we mystery authors had lost the last and final space in the Bay Area dedicated solely to mystery novels (as the S.F. Mystery Book Store had also recently shut its doors).

I'd like to thank Ed for all his support over the years. He loved mysteries and his store, as a gathering place for authors and readers, reflected that. Even more importantly, though, he made a no-name mystery author like myself feel so thoroughly, well, professional. Like I was a real author. And you say, well, you had a book published, doesn't that make you feel like a real author? Sadly, no. Ed rolled out the carpet and kept asking me when my next book was going to be out and actively made me feel like the real deal. Being an author is basically to court doubt every time you sit down at one's computer. Ed, for a brief hour, made me feel that I was part of the author crowd. That people didn't line up out the door for me to sign their books, but that I was still, yes, the real deal. I thank him for that. It was more important than he'll ever know. Ed was the real deal himself. He will be missed.

Back to Our Regular Programming

I am currently reading a novel that has gotten a tremendous amount of buzz in the last few months. Most of the buzz has been positive, but there have been a few people I know who have expressed--how do I put this--frustration with the ending. Halfway through it, I'll probably put up a review at some point soon, but based on the reactions that I've been reading, I think this might be a good time to bring up the issue of trust.

I've talked a lot about the implicit contract that develops between a writer and her/his reader. In a successful contract, the writer and the reader are on the same page. It basically boils down to the reader, in essence, saying: "You wrote a novel in such a way that most of my expectations were fulfilled. Thanks!" This contract falls apart when a reader's expectations aren't met.

The most difficult aspect of this writing business is accepting that not all people will like your writing. I've gotten to the point where I think that if 75% of readers likes what I've written, then I'm doing pretty damn well. Like I've said before, part of what makes a novel work is an understanding that the person flipping through your book shares some of your baggage or at least understands your baggage or is enthralled by your baggage or sympathizes with your baggage. The writer and the readers are handing that suitcase of anxiety, woe, humor, danger, frustration, sadness, and joy back and forth between each other as a reader journeys through a novel. What happens when a novel doesn't work? Then when the hand-off happens, the reader withdraws their hand and the baggage falls to the floor. The journey stops.

When I first starting writing mystery I got a lot of advice about what readers will and will not accept but there seems to be three basic tenets: (1) you can kill people but not animals (interesting that); (2) you can kill a child but it's difficult and problematic and you'd better be a damn fine writer to pull it off; and (3) you should have all the clue(s) available to the reader so that they can solve the crime. Number three is occasionally abused (and probably the most famous abuser of all would be the writer Conan Doyle), but not too often. It might not derail a book, but I know that if an author does abuse that rule that it will haunt them a little, as in, Wow, I liked that book, but the writer didn't play fair. T

So what is fair? Christie's Murder of Roger Ackroyd defined "clever," taking the notion of the unreliable narrator to its zenith. What distinguishes a clever twist from a pulled-the-rug-out-sneaky trick? When does a reader accept that an unreliable narrator is not a form of betrayal? I think that it does all boil down to how the author lays the ground work throughout the novel and how that groundwork compliments the ending. No reader wants to feel duped. Surprised? Yes. Isn't that what makes mystery such a compelling genre: that sense of surprise? The "aha!" But no reader wants to feel betrayed, because after all, they've been hauling that suitcase of baggage for about 70,000-90,000 words.

That Sound You Hear Are Moderate Republicans Positioning Themselves

Finally, finally it's beginning to happen. The moderate Republicans who have essentially been stomped into the ground and silenced during the Tea Party avalanche are now beginning to step forward and begin the slow process of taking back their party. Despite the craptastic economy, Obama's basically poised to win this.

Frankly, the only people the Repubs have to blame are themselves. The Democrats suffered a similar isolation (and defeat) when the left wing of the party held sway until Bill Clinton wrenched it away them. And let's be clear that I fall squarely in the far-left spectrum of political beliefs and yet I concede that this is what had to happen for the Dems to win the White House; it didn't hurt that the economy was in the toilet, making Bush senior very vulnerable. As has been Obama. I've heard over and over again this was the Republican's race to lose. Yep, all they had to do was run a centrist campaign and they would have mopped the floor with Obama.

Why do I say that the moderate Repubs are finally wrenching their party back to where it was pre-Tea Party? Two reasons: one is that Chris Christie basically gave Obama his biggest endorsement of the entire campaign and probably did more for Obama's numbers than any single event (with the exception of Romney's 47% comments). Christie has his own agenda for sure--hello, 2016--but more than that, he has a history of collaborating with Dems to get the job done, and that hasn't changed despite the GOP's determined efforts to obstruct all agenda (regardless WHAT the agenda is) as long as it means collaborating with the Dems. Christie is one of the few Republicans who seems to remember that government is a collaborative experience. Anyway, I would imagine people like Mitch McConnell (who has hired a Tea Party hack to run his 2016 Senate campaign--might want to review that strategy, Mitch) are furious. I would also imagine that Christie is getting a lot of behind the scenes support from those Republicans who have been bullied over the last two years by the extreme wing of the party to vote their way or the highway.

Two? The only issue the Republicans have been talking about for the last two weeks have been the events in Libya. Johnson went so far as to say that abortion is a non-issue and that every constituent he talks to is demanding answers on Benghazi. Interesting that. Ninety-seven percent of the population say they have strong feelings on abortion, while roughly half of the people polled had no idea what had happened in Libya (and it's not hard to make a leap that they don't care either). Today Condi Rice has come out and said, wait a minute, buckaroos. When events are happening that fast on the ground, it's difficult to get the facts straight. Don't jump to conclusions. In other words, back off.

That both of them, eminent Republicans, essentially endorsed the Obama administration the WEEK before the election says to me that the moderate Republicans are making their moves. They've written off Romney as being the puppet of the extreme wing of the party, and they've also written off this election. They are positioning themselves for 2016, which, mark my words, will be a centrist campaign that will appeal to precisely those voters who probably wouldn't have voted for Obama given the state of the economy but did so because the GOP cut its extremist throat. There are clearly some people who have had enough, have seen the damage done to the GOP by their extremist platform that marginalizes women and minorities (who are key to any election these days), and are determined to wrench the party back to the center. Look for a Christie/Jeb Bush ticket in 2016.

Good luck.

Thank Heavens to Murgatroyd, the Debates Are Over

Yes, Obama "won." I put that in quotes because common wisdom says that beyond having their children returned to them in body bags, Americans are pretty much divorced from what is happening in the rest of the world, and debates on foreign policy are, unfortunately, not that important to them. Unless there are body bags involved. This isolationist posture is extremely problematic because in this global economy financial crises in Europe will always impinge on America's economic health, and yet most Americans seem oblivious to this. I have yet to see any candidate say, yes, our economy is shit, however, it's much better currently than most economies, and, frankly, it's not going to get a whole hell of a lot better until Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal get their frigging acts together. No one says that. But from everything I've read, that seems to be the low down. If you have a third of your trading partners in the financial crapper, then who are you going to sell to? The trade deficit is held hostage by the financial meltdown overseas, and no matter how much wand waving Romney et al. can do, there is only so MUCH they can do. Except move money around, which is what they love to do anyway. Sigh.  Anyway, Americans tend to only care about Americans. What happens in those other countries, pfft!

Regarding Romney's performance? Sadly, I think this is the real Romney. And equally sadly this is the Romney that we rarely have seen in the entire year he's been on the campaign trail. Romney could have saved himself a whole lot of trouble by just using his two minutes to say, "Me, too!" Which is not a bad thing. His political career has been characterized by a general middle-of-the-road approach to most issues, and we probably would have seen a lot more of this Mitt had his party not been hijacked by extremists.

This does bring up the issue of integrity. And how he felt he had to sell his soul temporarily to the extreme wing of his party. And how Obama's constant hammering of him on his flip-flops actually does have some merit. I don't know if there is a real Romney. It's hard to tell at this point. I think this was the real Romney last night, but then again, he has shown that he is extremely vulnerable to machination of politics. Does this mean that he will constantly cave to the extreme wing of his party in order to get their cooperation as he has done this entire campaign? The man who has touted his ability to work with Democrats in his state, doesn't he realize that the people he might not be able to work with are from his OWN party. That he will, in essence, be in the same position that John Boehner has been in for the last two years? And what will he do in that situation, should he become president? Will he cave to them like he has done in the last two years of his campaign?

I'm truly curious.