What's so special about Karen Joy Fowler's new book, Wit's End
Karen Joy Fowler's new book, Wit's End, came out at a time when I'm writing against a deadline. Of course I wasn't going to read it until my project is done. Of course, since Karen was visiting San Francisco, I had to get a copy so I could get her to inscribe it. And of course once it was sitting there on the table....
The book is delightful. I'm not writing a synopsis of it here; they'll be all over the Net soon. I want to talk about what made it such a wonderful read.
The voice. There's this brilliant subtle humor, the clear-eyed recognition of the alogic of thought and emotion, represented with amazing economy. Okay, that makes it sound stuffy. What I mean is, it's funny, and it's *true*.
The characters. Rima is mourning her family, all dead before she's thirty: her mother, her father, and most painful, her younger brother. Yet it's not a tragic book, and Rima is not a pathetic character. She's enjoyable to spend time with. Addison, her godmother and an author, is strangely fascinating. She writes murder mysteries, basing them on elaborately modeled dolls' houses with the murder scene mocked up. (There are these delightful titles of the books she's written, with the murder method always noted with them.)
The whole cast of subsidiary characters, some of them only in memory. Oliver, the dead brother: through Rima's memories of him, he comes through as a charming, caring, somewhat irresponsible youngster. Bim: Rima's father and also the main villain in Addison's books. Addison's "father" who is actually her uncle. Oh, and the dogs: dachshunds on a diet.
The setting. Santa Cruz, quintessential beach town, and the lovely Victorian mansion of Wit's End. The exquisitely detailed dolls' houses. The decaying ranch where a cult once lived. The Internet, which becomes in an odd way part of the setting - blogs, fan-fic, wikipedia, and a virtual town.
There's a plot, and it works; but all it does, really, is carry you through the book. Some books are like freeways, where the main point is to get from Point A to Point B. Some are like back-roads, where the journey is the experience. This one's like that, with a car full of people who are pleasant company.
The book is delightful. I'm not writing a synopsis of it here; they'll be all over the Net soon. I want to talk about what made it such a wonderful read.
The voice. There's this brilliant subtle humor, the clear-eyed recognition of the alogic of thought and emotion, represented with amazing economy. Okay, that makes it sound stuffy. What I mean is, it's funny, and it's *true*.
The characters. Rima is mourning her family, all dead before she's thirty: her mother, her father, and most painful, her younger brother. Yet it's not a tragic book, and Rima is not a pathetic character. She's enjoyable to spend time with. Addison, her godmother and an author, is strangely fascinating. She writes murder mysteries, basing them on elaborately modeled dolls' houses with the murder scene mocked up. (There are these delightful titles of the books she's written, with the murder method always noted with them.)
The whole cast of subsidiary characters, some of them only in memory. Oliver, the dead brother: through Rima's memories of him, he comes through as a charming, caring, somewhat irresponsible youngster. Bim: Rima's father and also the main villain in Addison's books. Addison's "father" who is actually her uncle. Oh, and the dogs: dachshunds on a diet.
The setting. Santa Cruz, quintessential beach town, and the lovely Victorian mansion of Wit's End. The exquisitely detailed dolls' houses. The decaying ranch where a cult once lived. The Internet, which becomes in an odd way part of the setting - blogs, fan-fic, wikipedia, and a virtual town.
There's a plot, and it works; but all it does, really, is carry you through the book. Some books are like freeways, where the main point is to get from Point A to Point B. Some are like back-roads, where the journey is the experience. This one's like that, with a car full of people who are pleasant company.