Book completed

[eve_prime]

Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger. This rather depressing novel came highly recommended by a friend - well, now, I just went back to my email from her and it turns out she was actually recommending a different book by this author. Too bad! I read this one. It's narrated by a boy who was 13 in the summer of 1961, when five people died in his small Minnesota town. The death of the character closest to the narrator was sad enough, but the next one was even worse. People seem to love this book, but I don't really see the appeal of stories that pile on tragedy after tragedy. I wonder if it's connected with the "catharsis" that accompanied performances of Greek tragedy; I don't know enough about the psychology of that to say, but I expect it's different because with the Greek tragedy the audience usually already knew the story, whereas here it was one unfortunate event revealed after another.

After the third death and before the fourth (the one I considered the most sad), I wondered what on earth could possibly happen to redeem this story. Apparently it's supposed to be that the narrator's little brother was cured of his stuttering when he gave a public prayer for his dead sister, and he grew up to be a pastor like his father. Previously, he had only been able to speak fluidly in the company of his brother the narrator, who was his best friend, so we are probably expected to infer that he had let God into his heart to also be his best friend, someone who would always be with him. And probably this was just as it had been for his father, who had turned to God after his war experiences had left him knowing himself responsible for the deaths of others - it was something this boy had unknowingly said that had led to the fourth death. Also I was sorry that my favorite character in the book had been the one who had (inadvertently) killed the sister. Anyway, that's enough of this author for me.

Comments

[heleninwales]

Oh, dear! That book sounds very dismal. No wonder you were surprised that your friend had recommended it.

[eve_prime]

I went ahead and read the reviews for the book she did suggest. At first it looked a lot less negative, but then I read some spoiler text and saw that all of the women are sexually mistreated, so I don't think I'll be reading it either.