Customer Reviews

The Black Brook

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4 star:		(7)
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I don't think it ruins anything to mention that the title comes from a painting of a girl's thoughts. How does Tom Drury think about so much and with such wit? As an experiment before writing this review I flipped the book open randomly at several points. Just as I thought, there was a wonderful surprise to be savored on every page. There are descriptions, scenes and sentences I wanted to bring home and turn into house pets. The fact that he manages to weave a plot around all this delicious satirical writing is amazing. I can't wait for his next book since I've read all three now.

Read The Black Brook. Drury is funny and poignant. The people are a little off the beaten track but that's what makes this a book to be read.

There is no other writer like Tom Drury. He explores the common-place, and somehow, in a casual and off-hand way, ends up exploring the profound and universal. His books seem like real life, in that it isn't always apparent what the significance is of certain observations or characters. He is a very down-to-earth writer, who cares about the characters he creates, even if they appear only briefly. In "The Black Brook" the main character, Paul, is almost heart-breaking in his inability to connect with those around him. It is a beautiful and funny book, that ends up a bit scattered at the end. But it resonates.

This book is somewhat shapeless, strewing red herrings as it wanders. The author definitely gives the impression of a writer who sits down at his desk each day with no firm direction. However, if you are a reader for whom the destination is less important than the journey, there is much here to interest you. The protagonist seems to be searching for something to cure his malaise, and this quest takes him from Belgium to small town New England to Scotland, well-wrought descriptively. Just don't expect a point to it all.

A fine stylist who has ALMOST found his voice...a good storyteller, but sometimes too much in love with his own well-chosen words. Sometimes reads like Don DeLillo lite. Still, you won't regret reading this fine book.

I kept thinking that this is the kind of novel Paul Auster would write if Auster wrote more mainstream books. (It especially reminded me of Leviathan, due maybe to locale.)Though he depends less on coincidence than Auster does, Drury is still pretty far from the mainstream with this slow but beautifully written "mystery." That is, it seems like it should be a mystery, but it doesn't read as if there's any rush to find out what's at the bottom of the odd circumstances surrounding Paul Emmons, formerly Paul Nash, who is in the witness protection program for ratting on the mob. It's more of a character study. Category-defying. The prose is sharp and fresh.

The Black Brook is a book of many minor miracles, not a piece of fiction that ends with a bang and leaves you breathless. There's a somewhat cohesive overriding story here but it's the pieces of that story that make the book wonderful. This might be an example of the parts being greater and more important than their sum.

Drury has a fantastic wit, a true gift at characterization, and an astonishing eye for emotional detail. I found myself in local bookstores trying to find Drury's other novels before I had even managed to finish The Black Brook. Yet, despite the talent displayed here, the novel failed to pack the final emotional punch of which I thought it capable. The end was a let down, but in hindsight, those minor miracles were worth it.

If you thought his first book was good, this one is even better. There is something funny on each page. His dead-pan humor is close to both Portis and Willeford, but he's in a class all his own. I can't wait for the next one.

The story line is thin and rather forgettable. The character of Paul is ambiguous. Now he drifts without purpose or goal, then - all of a sudden - he shows character in standing up to the mob or trying to solve the mystery of the drowned woman. He can be responsible, as in his newspaper job, and then he drifts off again to take care of his misplaced libido. The writing styly is above average, though, and the redeeming grace are the very humorous asides.