Cesar, Lynn: Apricot Brandy
Apricot Brandy
Writer: Lynn Cesar
Genre: Fantasy/Contemporary
Pages: 300
Back on a Juno kick. I was really, really looking forward to this book. Intriguing title, gorgeous cover, and while the backcover blurb did nothing for me, there was one little detail in the blurb on the Juno website that made me go, "Ooh! I want this book!"
That detail? The main character, Karen, has a lover named Susan. That's right, she's a lesbian protagonist.
Logically, my brain thought the following: Juno, as far as I've read, has published romantic fantasy novels. If the protagonist is a lesbian, that means the romantic element in THIS book will be very different from the OTHER romantic fantasy I've read, and therefore, that is very cool and I want to read it.
So for that reason, or maybe others that I can't even fathom, I had ridiculously high expectations for this book. It didn't start out so bad. By time I was finished, well, let's just say I was very, very disappointed.
Spoilers behind the cut.
According to the author's bio, Apricot Brandy is her first novel. Not just her debut, but her FIRST NOVEL. Now, that's not always a bad thing, but let me just say up front, this reads very much like a first novel, and in this case, well, I've read better.
Apricot Brandy had a lot of potential. First off, we've got a modern setting with modern characters. Modern settings are usually ripe with urban fantasy tropes (paranormal creatures of fangs, fur, and fey), so it's really awesome to see a supernatural power at work in this plot, particularly a supernatural power of Mayan order. That's right: we've got Mayan mythology mixed up with this modern-day plot that takes place in some small town out west. Cool.
We've also got a very hard character who happens to be a lesbian. Double-cool. At first, I was a little worried: Karen is a woman whose father sexually abused her when she was a child, and as a result, she's a drunk who hasn't seen him in twenty years. The only reason she's gone home is because he shot himself, and she has to confront her childhood home and clean up the mess (not literally, but metaphysically). Karen's got to put her demons down to rest, and it's not easy.
That in and of itself started out really promising. Karen starts out by drinking, and then after a frightening night where she loses controls of her body and almost kills herself, she goes sober. The road to healing begins when her lover, Susan, shows up to offer moral support. But there's a problem. Something about being at this house inspires Susan to start drinking, and it isn't long until Susan ends up dead in a car crash.
So of course, Karen spirals back into grief and back into booze. At this point, I'm impressed at how Cesar just kept making it worse for her protagonist, and it simply doesn't get better. One of the men she hires to cut down her father's orchard ends up trying to rape her, but she shoots him instead. Now she's got a murder on her hands, the town's sheriff hates her, but luckily, the OTHER worker she hired to help cut down the orchard is willing to help, and together, they dispose of the body and all of the evidence.
Now, if all of this sounds implausible, it isn't. Summary tends to make things sound silly when they aren't, and the plotline I just related to you is actually executed well. My only complaints in this section (save for the other plotline, mind you) was just how difficult it was to emphasize with Karen when she was in a drunk POV. Same with Susan, when we got into her head. It's unfortunate that I pretty much pegged Susan to die, but by time she did, I really wasn't liking her, thanks to her drunken state. Not that I have trouble with drunks, but you try reading the POV of a drunk character that's not supposed to be funny and you tell me how YOU like it.
So this is all well and good, but where's the magic? Well, that's where the OTHER subplot comes in. That sheriff who hates Karen's guts? Adored her father, Jack Fox, and was apparently a disciple of his. A disciple of what? The green god, who--at least, according to my reading of the text--is the Mayan "god" Xibalba. Let's ignore the fact, for a moment, that already, this development doesn't match AT ALL with what little I know about Mayan mythology, cause that's okay. I can research it later and put the non-fiction in a fictional context, right?
There's also Jack Fox's best friend, Dr. Harst, who was saved in Vietnam by Fox and has pretty much worshipped the man since, even when Fox sodomized him in the back of a station wagon (yes, I flinched when I read that. Not about the sex, but the word choice. Sodomy has got such a horrible religious stigma attached to it that reading it from the POV of someone who welcomed the act was very jarring). But Harst is more than a worshipper (and a driveling, sniveling, crying idiot): he's got a power that he shared with Fox, a power that gives him super human strength, all granted to him by the green god.
How? Something to do with the sacrifice of bodies into the earth. But something big's about to happen, and Fox's body is released to the green god via a special tunnel underground, and Harst ends up going against his will too, which gives all the power to Marty, that darn sheriff, who must now bring about the Apocalypse.
Apparently, the green god, who created earth and all its creatures, is tired of how man's treating earth and wants man to die. Wow, that one sentence just made more sense to me than the motivations behind the entire book.
Okay, okay. So there's a shaky plot at best, with the only real connection being Karen's father. Right? Wrong. Somehow, she's connected to this whole mess, because while her dad is dead, he's not really dead. All that weird stuff happening on the orchard, Susan's death, the attempted rape? All somehow summoned by her dead father. Then there's the apricot brandy that seems to have a supernatural effect on people and land, as well as the fact that the orchard itself seems to be the place in which the green god resides (deep in the earth, of course).
I should mention there's also a witch. An honest-to-god Guatemalan witch, who hijacks the plot around page 200 and fights the coming apocalypse. Yes, the witch. Not Karen, no, and that is one of my biggest problems with the whole book.
It's not Karen's story. Oh sure, she figures at the end when she faces the twelve foot giant mass her father has become, but SHE DOES NOTHING. It's the witch and her ghosts that ultimately save the day, and a change of heart when her father faces the ghost of Karen's mother. The father turns on the green god, and last we see of them, they're fighting with dad winning via apricot brandy. Don't ask me. I still don't get it.
Here's the thing: I can put up with a lot in fiction, provided the narrative voice engages me (this one didn't), the characters are developed (Karen never approached three-dimensionality, and the rest were cardboard), or the ideas are fascinating (which could've been, if I wasn't so pissed off). As long as I have one of those three, I can usually be happy with SOMETHING in the book.
See my problem?
Narrative voice: not only did Cesar slide from head-to-head within single sections, but I swear to god, we get the POV from every single unimportant and minor character in the book, all for the sake of showing the reader what's going on in the town and how the green god is taking it over. And this wasn't bad until about page 200 (mind you, this is only a 300 page book), and I got really tired really fast of leaving the IMPORTANT character of the story to hear what the bad guys are up to (okay, excusable absence, even if I don't care for it) or how what the bad guys are up to is affecting everyone in the town. This bored me. It frustrated me. By time I got back to Karen, I didn't care about her anymore and couldn't be made to, and it seemed the author didn't care any more either, because Karen lost her growth into three-dimensionality and became a tool of the plot.
Characters: I've already mentioned depth about Karen, as well as the difficulty relating to her while she was drunk. Kyle was the only really likable guy in the book, but while I believe he truly wanted to help Karen, we never saw WHY, other than he was a good guy who went to prison for self-defense and deserved sympathy. Okay, fine, yawn. Everyone else? Cardboard. Bad guys were bad, and their motivation was power. Good guys were good because they had to defeat the bad guys. Okay, fine, yawn.
And let's talk about an important thing (for me) when it comes to fiction, particularly leading ladies: I liked characters who make choices. Characters who take control of their own lives, their own destinies, and steer them into the future regardless of the pain it might cause.
Not a single character in this book made a choice that mattered. Karen facing her demons at the beginning was admirable, but by time she decided to stay at the house at the end, it wasn't because she knew what was coming and was determined to fight it, but because the ghost of her dead lover Susan told her to not leave the property. Sure, Karen shooting her would-be rapist was a great choice that should've had a profound affect on the plot, but later its dismissed as the supernatural force guiding the events that led to Wolf's (the rapist's) death so that the green god could use him. And at the end, Karen tries to fight, she tries to run, but she never saves herself. First Kyle helps, then the ghost of her mother, then her dad finally has a change of heart, and then it's the witch and her ghosts.
Karen was nothing but a damsel in distress in this book, and that pisses me off. I don't care what she had to suffer as a teen at the hands of her father (which, let me just point out LOUD AND CLEAR: I AM NOT TRIVIALIZING SUCH REAL LIFE EXPERIENCES), and the fact that she's able to move past this is admirable, but she doesn't move past it without 1) her dead dad coming back to himself (I'll explain in a minute) and 2) people saving her.
And speaking of choices, can I just say how much I hated how both the green god and the witch manipulated people into doing their bidding? I mean, it was ridiculous how little choice people had in this book, even the dad. Turns out, he wasn't a bad guy until he went on a mission in Central America, fell down a hole, and the green god entered his mind and body and changed him. Apparently, it wasn't the dad's own sickness that made him rape his own daughter, but the green god's will.
Do I have to explain why this pisses me off? Because I will if you ask, but I'll end up ranting and swearing and it won't even be funny.
I'll say this much: such "plot devices" only trivialize, to me, the real experience that unfortunate women do suffer. Rape isn't a laughing matter. Rape is evil. So is child abuse. The people who commit such acts ARE MONSTERS. There is NO denying this. To create a good man in fiction who does such a thing BECAUSE A MONSTER MAKES HIM is not compelling. It's a fantasy in the worst sense, because it excuses--whether it means to or not--the actions of the real monster.
And let's get to the third item: fascinating ideas: you'd think that a Mayan mythology plot in a modern setting would be uber-cool, right? I mean, I don't know much about Mayan mythology, so I'll pretty much accept whatever a writer wants to throw at me, because I don't know any better.
Unfortunately, I know a little about Xibalba. I know it's a place of death and all things associated with evil (so in that regard, we're good, right?). But I also know that Xibalba wasn't a GOD. There are LORDS of Xibalba, which, like I said, is a place. Now, maybe my sources (which are a little dubious, since this was a quick search online) are in a minority, or maybe there's other POVs of Xibalba. But my problems with this whole root of evil (pun intended) boils down to the fact that for the first time, I feel like an author is trivializing the mythology and culture. I've never been one to say that writers should stick to what they know when it comes to place, race, ethnicity, mythology, and culture, but damn, give it SOME credit. Don't turn it into what could be the plot of a cheesey SciFi original movie (yes, that's how this book read to me by the end). And what's worse, don't give the power of a Mayan "god" to pasty-ass WHITE MEN who kill, for their blood sacrifices, Mexicans and Pakistanis! Could we GET any more insensitive? Sure, it's the CHARACTERS who are assholes, but jeez. Maybe the witch was meant to show the respect the culture deserved, but she too was a very one-sided character, and I couldn't embrace her, even though she was on the side of good.
There was no casual chain to this plot at all, especially by the end. Shit happened and more shit happened. Hell, the book barely resolves and reveals that Karen's dad wasn't the only one who took a fall down this particular cave in Central America, but others had too, and all of this was a coordinated effort on the part of Xibalba to destroy humanity. The world's battling monsters, but the people of this town are safe for now.
And, the part that really twists my gut, Karen "had met a man with an upright spirit and a caring heart who, without a moment's hesitation, had risked his life to save hers" (300).
By the end, she bathes him (in summary, and this is a parallel to something not sexual earlier in the book, so that's okay, I guess), and they lie side-by-side naked in a sleeping bag. They don't DO anything (at least, it never outright SAYS SO), but you know, they're naked.
Please, PLEASE don't tell me that the ONLY reason Karen was a lesbian was because her father raped her as a child and she didn't trust men. PLEASE don't tell me that now her father's been forgiven and she's met a man she can trust that she's going to turn heterosexual. Please don't tell me that's what the author intended. Because that's just cheap.
Now I don't have a problem if Karen was bi-sexual, but it would've been nice to establish that at the beginning of the book.
I suspect there's going to be a sequel, but I can't find anything on Juno's or the author's website to indicate this is so.
I want to add that there was lots of annoying crying from both men and women. And why is the cover model's hair so obviously blackish-brown when the protagonist's hair is blonde?
I think my expectations were just too damn high. I was okay until about page 200, and then all hell broke loose. To say I'm disappointed in this book is really an understatement. Cheated is a better word. When I come across books that don't work for me, I still don't hesitate to recommend them to other readers because hey, we all have different tastes. For me to find a book that I will NOT recommend to someone else is a rare thing, and, well, it's a blue moon. It's not to say that SOMEONE out there won't enjoy this, and there has to be, otherwise this book would've never gotten published. But damn, if you're one of those people, care to sit down and comment and tell me WHY this book worked for you? I may have missed something. I'd love to see the other side of things. I really would.
Next up: Unveiling the Sorceress by Saskia Walker