book review: a cold night for alligators
Description from the front flap:
Twenty-six-year-old Jasper hasn't seen or heard from his older brother,
Coleman, in over ten years. Not since Coleman walked through the back
gate one morning, leaving behind a distraught family concerned by his
increasingly outlandish behaviour. Now Jasper's life has come to an
impasse - he has settled into a rather stultifying existence as a
corporate drone, living with a girlfriend he doesn't quite know how to
break up with. Until a freak accident and strange phone call change
everything. With little more to go on than a random phone call, Jasper
follows his brother's trail southward into the Florida Everglades where a
family mystery from his childhood may hold the key to Coleman's
disappearance. Accompanied by brawny, devout Donny and the extremely
eccentric Duane, Jasper embarks on a series of misadventures involving a
gorgeous swamp moll, an estranged aunt and alligator poachers as he
gets deeper into his search for his brother. All roads seem to lead to
Uncle Rolly Lee, a rock-and-rolling swamp rat whose rather rough
exterior belies an even rougher interior. Can Jasper uncover the secrets
of the past and find his brother before he gets mired in the swamp and
the machinations of Rolly Lee?
Populated with unforgettable characters and a suspense-filled story at its heart, A Cold Night for Alligators is a first novel about loss, hope and the ties that bind family together.
Truth be told, I was extremely excited about this book. I read a review of it over on a blog and was pretty intrigued by what the blogger said about the book.
The writing needs a bit of cleaning up, but i like the references to sweat, heat, humidity, and stench. Those are stuff I can connect with (that's generally what I like to use to describe my experience in taiwan too). There's something really endearing in those descriptive moments for me, like the way littered alleyways in slushy snowy wintertime is endearing to some. However, scenic extrapolations aside, I had some serious problems getting into the book.
The writing in this book becomes a big hurdle for me during my reading. It's not that the language is difficult, or the narrative convoluted, or the descriptions tedious and/or overwhelming. No, it is none of that. In fact, I might have to say that the book is pretty much the opposite of those traits. A Cold Night For Alligators' style is simple and to the point, and like I said before the parts describing Florida weather and environment really catches the essence of the place. However, I suppose that this being Crowe's first book, there is still a lot to be polished up in his writing. Of course, the narrator of the story is a 30-something average joe with a somewhat limited vocabulary, so technically the straightforward language is quite reflective of Jasper's character. However, even a story featuring an "average" character with a limited vocabulary can be rendered in beautiful prose, such as that of Huckleberry Finn.* In many ways I feel like this was really too bad because I spot glimmers of what Crowe is trying to express in the text, but ultimately they are simply swamped in the choppy and muddled writing.**
Themewise, the family is a big focus in this story, though of course self-discovery and loss are quite prominent as well. However, for some reason, the family healing and bonding motif doesn't quite touch me as one would expect out of a book focused on such themes. Maybe it's because of my troubles with the writing. Maybe it is because throughout the book Jasper doesn't actually interact much with his family, or connect with them (with the exception of Aunt Val, but that still didn't quite reach me despite the tender moment she has with Rolly Lee and Hoyt). There simply isn't enough of those moments to pull my heartstrings in the right direction. I'm not sure what exactly is missing from the story but either way even though the characters in the book keep mentioning blood being thicker than water I don't feel like I see much manisfestation of the statement.
One thing that puzzles me the most about this book is how the story turned out at the end. The ending doesn't come as that much of a surprise as there are major hints dropped throughout the book about the character of various people in the story. However, tone-wise, I feel like the ending seems almost unsure of what it's trying to say. It is as if the supernatural isn't quite supernatural (so it's not completely into the realm of magical realism), the romantic isn't quite so romantic (as in the fantastical sort of romance not the amorous kind), and then the whole agency vs. fate theme isn't quite realized either. So all we end up with something with a bit about family and love and suffering and crime and... that's it. I would say the weirdest part for me is in the character of Melissa. She seems to be a normal girl (albeit a super hot one according to the others in the story) with the need to get away from the suffocating small-town swampy air of Florida, appearing to have some sort of depth (which is ultimately unrealized of course like many of the other things introduced by the author) but near the end bam suddenly Melissa gets turned into a femme fatale character. Like, what? There is absolutely no need for that shift (or perhaps I am just blind to the signs of pulp mystery that pops up in the book... meaning that this isn't as out of character as I'm assuming). I feel like Melissa along with Hoyt and to a certain extent even Aunt Val are rather cheated of their original character development. The final page of the book is extremely satisfying, I'll give it that. But otherwise... I finish the story feeling slightly duped. It comes of to me as that Crowe toys with many themes and has so much to express that he starts pulling a plethora threads but leaves them hanging in a messy and tangled knot at the end, unrealized and undecipherable to the reader.
All in all, this is a pretty satisfying book. It still has space for improvement but you can kind of see that Crowe came off on a good start. Jasper is... I'm assuming some sort of an author avatar (this is completely groundless so please don't quote me) which, in the case of new writers, often ends up being a bit patchy and unrealized. Coleman, on the other hand, is awesome. I love this guy, simply because he appeals to my inner cry for epic heroes. He's tormented, resolved, fearless, and magical (yes he has a supernatural way with alligators). He also comes and goes like the silent but focused alligators that he so love. I know he is construed to be a foil for Jasper, but I think Coleman really ends up stealing the spotlight. Which may or may not be on purpose from Crowe, considering how this novel is discussing the type of shadow or hole left in a family by the disappearance of a child. Which is interesting actually, to see that Coleman's status is completely altered into mythical level in Jasper's eyes, hence the epic presentation.
I think i would give this book a 3.5/5 I expected more, but it's decent nonetheless.
*I am aware that this is somewhat of an unfair comparison as Mark Twain is such an iconic writer who by the time he finished Huck Finn was much more experienced than Crowe. However, my point still stands in that just because the characters are not poetic doesn't mean that the narration of the story can't be either.
**I feel a bit guilty writing about this since honestly my writing is also sub-par at its best (judging by the stuff i put on this blog) but I guess this is just treading in the grey area of "being good at something and judging" vs "right to have an opinion though sucking at the area". Yes, i'm influenced by all those youtube arguments one is always prone to find on audio uploads. However, since this is my blog, I suppose I'm entitled to say whatever I want, without much of a responsibility to anybody. wow i'm such a jerk