Review: The Slap

The Slap is another paperback I picked up for free at Newtonville Books after buying a full-price hardcover (see July 24, 2012, "Review: That Old Ace In the Hole").

I'd never heard of the book or its author, Christos Tsiolkas, but I liked the premise: a man slaps somebody else's child at a backyard barbecue, and as a result, a group of friends, acquaintances and family members question their parenting abilities, their cultural differences, their ideals and their relationships to each other.

Plus, it's an Australian tale and who doesn't love the Aussies?

As with the last book I read, Annie Proulx's "That Old Ace In the Hole," I feel that this book could've used a heavier edit. What's wrong with a novel that's under, say, 400 pages?

As someone who self-published a book ((C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity) that needed better editorial oversight, I know of what I speak. I had spent so much time getting the book ready for publication (10 years, give or take) that I couldn't stomach the idea of someone telling me where to make changes, or questioning the ideas in my book.

But if you're working with an actual editor and publisher, your book should be tighter than Tsiolkas's book. Still, I enjoyed his story and his method for presenting the multitude of difficult and intricately woven issues.

There are eight chapters, each one told from the perspective of a different character. I was impressed at Tsiolkas's ability to see life from so many different angles, both male and female, young (18) and old (69), and make each one seem true to life.

I thought he did an especially good job with the internal monologues of each of the characters. As someone who does a lot of self-talking (what probably appears to the outside world as crazy talk), I can relate to the world of inner thoughts, and how different that realm is to the persona we put forward.

And the view into the various cultures of Australia -- many of the characters are Greek immigrants and their children and grandchildren -- was fascinating. How do the Greeks deal with each other, and the aboriginal natives, and those of English descent? And what are the conflicts among friends who are Christian, Muslim, Hindu or atheist? Good stuff all around.

I know this isn't the most thorough review, but I started this a while back and just want to finish it up, so in conclusion I'll just say that I recommend the book.

G'day!

Review: That Old Ace in the Hole

Newtonville Books is a great local store. When they were actually located in my adopted 'hood of Newtonville -- before their move to the tonier Newton Centre -- they for a time offered buyers of hardcover books a great deal: a coupon for a FREE used paperback.

I picked up a bunch of freebies through that offer, a few of which I've read. This week I finished Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole.

Proulx is well-known and highly regarded. She won the Pulitzer Prize for The Shipping News, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and garnered recognition for her 1997 short story, "Brokeback Mountain," which Ang Lee turned into an award-winning film in 2005.

So after pawing through lots of books by authors I'd never heard of, I was excited to find Proulx's 2002 novel about a young man sent by his new employer to the Texas Panhandle to scout locations for hog farms.

I have to say, though, that the book left me somewhat unfulfilled, as though I'd ordered the Lumberjack Special at my local diner, and instead of Canadian bacon on the side they gave me veggie bacon strips (side note: why hasn't anybody copyrighted Facon and turned it into a viable commercial product?).

Proulx fills the book with incredible descriptions of the Texas landscape:

And it was crazy country too, some of the flattest terrain on earth, tractor-chewed and rectangled, rugged breaks and plunging canyons, sinister clouds too big to see in one look, rusty rivers, bone white roads and red grass -- the oddly named bluestem."

And she populates the book with loads of colorful characters with even more colorful names, such as Freda Beautyrooms, Rope Butt and Ribeye Cluke. As a guy who discovered a love for writing in second or third grade by making up stories featuring the most ridiculous names I could think of, I chuckled at each of Proulx's way-out character names. But eventually I found them a distracting device.

The protagonist, Bob Dollar, has an appropriately generic name, as he really doesn't displace much water in the story, but seems only to serve as a sounding board for other people's opinions and ideas.

He never cares about his job at Global Pork Rind, understandably. But he feels a sense of loyalty, which he attributes to his not wanting to abandon his responsibility the way his parents left him behind as a child, with an uncle, when they took off for Alaska. The corollary just doesn't work.

I was sorely disappointed that this book just didn't seem to ever really come together. I felt as though Proulx kept stringing things along -- plots, character development, scene descriptions -- because she didn't really know how she wanted to end it.

And when the ending did come, it was with a whimper, not a bang, which I guess is appropriate given how dull a character Bob Dollar is.

Now, I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that I didn't enjoy this book at all. I wouldn't have plowed through its 359 pages otherwise. But I wanted the book to be great, not just OK. I wanted there to be a big surprise or shock here and there, but there really wasn't.

I guess that's why I found this book in the used section, and got it for free.