Customer Reviews

Ceremony: A Spenser novel

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There is no murder in this entry in the long running Spenser series. The missing person is found before the book is half over. What gives the book it's central focus is Spenser's moral problem-what do you do with a teenage hooker who doesn't want to leave her current 'job'? He passes up the chance to bust a big-time pimp preferring to concentrate on a prostitution ring with its roots in the Boston school system. He rescues the girl from a kinky brothel where insubordinate hookers are sent as punishment only to have her break away and rejoin the the man who recruited her. Along with Hawk, Spenser engages in one of the most astounding fistfights of his career at the headquarters of the ring and manages to rescue the girl again. At the end, Spenser and Susan are forced to face the problem of what to do with the girl. Their options shake Susan to her core and make for an interesting argument on what is good for the girl vs what is legal. This stands head and shoulders above the usual Spenser parade of wisecracks. Along with "Mortal Stakes", this is one of Parker's best.

I recently finished Spenser's latest, WIDOW'S WALK, and really didn't like it one bit. Thank goodness for CEREMONY, which reminded me of everything I love about the series. The story was complex and meaningful -- student April Kyle has a terrible homelife and turns to hooking. What is worse, what's more damaging to her still evolving psyche? Susan is serious and struggling with real issues. Hawk is a loyal, supportive presence. No extraneous subplots, no strained wise cracking. Just good storytelling. Highly recommended.

I have read many of Mr. Parkers books on Spenser and find them very hard to put down. I enjoyed the television series, also and enjoy the relationship between Hawk, Spenser and Susan. I would like to get a list of his older books, which I don't have.

Spenser's significant other, Susan Silverman, finally takes center stage in "Ceremony." April Kyle, one of the kids at the school where Susan is a guidance counselor, has dropped out of school and become a prostitute. When Spenser meets April's parents it becomes immediately clear why this kid left home and why being a [prostitute] would look good. After meeting them Spenser wants nothing to do with this family, but Susan insists telling him: "For me. A favor. For me." Our hero sighs, tells the mother he will take the case for a dollar and threatens to hurt the father if he does not button up. Susan's involvement does not end at this point in the case and while Hawk is again a strong supporting presence, the key aspect of this novel is Spenser dealing not only with the case but also with how Susan handles how he deals with the case. Their discussions reveal both Spenser's peculiar worldview and the true nature of their own special relationship. This 1982 novel, the ninth in the series, explores more explicitly than most of Parker's novels the ethical relativism that underscores Spenser's decisions. As our hero tells a pimp he is threatening at one point in a marvelous moment of revelation, "I do what I can, not what I should."

The title for this novel is taken from a line of Yeats' poem "The Second Coming" that speaks to "The ceremony of innocence" being drowned. In the book's conclusion Spenser tries to make the best of a bad situation and the tragedy of April's fate is certainly a different type than we have encountered in these books in the past. This is the sort of intimate case that suits Spenser best, played out in the suburbs of Boston and the city's Combat Zone instead of Hollywood or other exotic locales. Besides, he does more cooking when he is at home or hanging out with Susan. "Ceremony" is one of the best of Robert B. Parker's early Spenser novels.

I purchased "Ceremony" last week. It was immediately loaded into my Kindle. I had just gotten my Kindle & didn't realize how quickly books could be loaded. I am an avid Robet B. Parker fan & love the Spenser series. He's gone now & I'll miss his books.

I was following up on "Early Autumn" to see if Parker continued the story of Paul Giacomin and came to "Ceremony". Spenser displayed his parenting skills in the earlier book with Paul and his feuding parents, now we find him involved with a girl who has uninvolved parents; the father a demanding, dominant controlling type, the mother a meek, weak, submissive woman. These parents are also uininvolved with their daughter's desires, the father only wants her to do as he says, the mother will not defend her. Susan Silverman involves Spenser and we are off with another view of his attitude towards children.
The girl. April, has run away from home and become a whore. The father disowns her but Spenser is hired to find her. He does so but also tells Susan he is not going to force her to return to her parents. A conflict develops, Susan wants her returned. April has broken away from Spenser while he is taking her away from her base of operations even though she has told him she prefers it to home. Spenser remains involved, a matter of personal code, she has outsmarted him and he wants to do something for her, not to her.She tells him, before breaking away, she wants to be a whore, the life is preferable to living with her parents. Spenser is in a bind, she desrves a better life than she is living but she will not live with her parents. What to do?
Spenser puts a watch on the house occupied by a girl who had helped him find her in the first instance, Spenser expects April to return to her. He spots an opportunity to burglarize the place and does so. He discovers evidence of child pornography, contacts Susan and Hawk, they watch for April and she supports them. Now to continue would be to give the story away but this is also where all the action occurs, No murders, just plenty of slugging and fighting, of involving the cops and deciding what to do with April and, indirectly her friend, The conclusion is soft, the book must be read to find out the ending. I think it is worth it, despite the similarities between it and "Early Autumn". All Spenser devotees should enjoy it.

Tags: Spenser, Robert Parker, pornography, Boston, prostitution

I read this book many years ago, and thought it was typical of what is good about Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. However, I'm not writing here to review the book; that has already been done well enough by others. I'm writing to point out that there is an error in the matching of the reviews with the book supposedly being reviewed.

Of the reviews posted for "Ceremony" (sixteen as I write this), three are reviewing a completely different work, apparently a supernaturally-themed B-movie on VHS, which happens to have the same title. These three are also three of the four reviews that give a score of less than four stars. This skews the "average review" score, while wasting the time of anyone looking for info about the Parker book.

(The fourth reviewer who gives " Ceremony" a low score apparently does have the right work, if a misguided opinion. I'll take the high road and not disparage his review; I'll just point out that he spells Spenser incorrectly.)

For the record, "Ceremony" (the one by Robert B. Parker), poses an interesting, and at least semi-profound moral dilemma, which Spenser (as usual), doesn't seem to linger over too long. Interestingly, Spenser encounters the teenage prostitute again in a much later book, ("Hundred Dollar Baby"), now older and a madame, but the later story takes a darker turn. "Hundred Dollar Baby" is good, but I think I might like "Ceremony" better.

Some of Spenser's hottest wisecracks have been fueled lean and mean by surged anger raring to box ear lobes and boogie the brawn... which he did in one of the scenes in CEREMONY, ruining a dark party scene with a long run of blood.

Even so, this # 9 in series pinged out of the bag with humor popping. Harry Kyle, "successful" salesman, was pushing to write off his daughter. He was painted brightly (though his lack of brilliance was astounding) with Parker's flashiest flaming pen.

APRIL KYLE arrived here, honing a darker season than EARLY AUTUMN (# 7 in series), exposing a sadly ancient brand of initiation. Hers was a story which rightfully seared heated anger at an injustice to the innocence of youth. The hissing humor at the opening provided a sort of backwards relief valve, in preparation for a descent into this painfully pithy side of life.

In this series my favorite scenes (as exemplified here) dramatize Spenser and Silverman facing off with contrary moods. I'm always caught by Spenser's attention paid (or not) to Susan's scowls for silence, which she exercised elaborately in the opening scene with Harry Kyle.

Also find it interesting that Spenser rarely (if ever) uses the term "dialogue."

Repartee is his name for that human exchange, and he admittedly seeks it for steady gains in rhythm and spark.

In CEREMONY, repartee picked up between Spenser and Hawk, as polished by a bar towel in a riveting scene of negotiations with Tony Marcus. This scene might be accepted as the first of what could be termed a signature of deus-ex-machina used by Parker in a few future Spenser novels, often to achieve a parenthesis-of-safety for Susan as her presence bleeds into the brutal sides of his life.

The way Parker deals with prostitution in CEREMONY is realistic. Having been married 8 years to a deputy sheriff who spent two years as an undercover vice cop in the 70's in the Portland Oregon area, I wasn't surprised by details of this side of life. I was amazed at how clearly Parker captured some of the feelings of women who entered that scene and became compelled to stay.

RBP didn't look AT them in an attempt to understand their stories; he tried to look through them, not in a sense of transparency, but from behind their eyelids (I made a reference to Spenser's spicy twist on understanding different viewpoints in my review of A SAVAGE PLACE, # 8 in series).

If I recall correctly, the late 70's or early 80's (when CEREMONY may have been percolating in Parker's mind) held the aftermath of explosive exposures in THE HAPPY HOOKER: My Own Story, the autobiographical account by a woman who might have been like the NYC madam Parker referred to in CEREMONY.

HOOKER certainly took the world by tsunami with its plate-glass-window exposure of the naked soul of seamy sensuality in sexual commodities.

As noted above, CEREMONY addressed a heartbreaking part of our cultural heritage in a sensitive way, and the plot gave in-your-face, life-true detail.

Yet, I believe this type of story doesn't have to end the way CEREMONY did:

When my ex-husband was assigned to undercover vice, his team worked with a young woman who was deeply involved in the world portrayed here. She began acting as an informant, and as the team began to befriend her, they wanted to help her out of The Life locked into criminal culture.

It wasn't easy and the transformation was very literally a miracle, but after this informant worked as a hidden agent for a couple years, she had become convinced to freely quit both her Night Jobs to attend a special ceremony. The vice squad gave a solid presence at her wedding to a man outside the world of crime, a man who was as good as they come. That type of major life change probably doesn't occur often for a person who has become steeped into the street life of drugs and prostitution. In this case the change took and it held.

In my case back in the 70's, fresh out of college and taking too much pride in an "open minded" nature, I thought I admired THE HAPPY HOOKER's apparent freedom from shame, though I had no desire to live her lifestyle. The author's candor was appealing, and the book made a significant contribution to cultural awareness. I have a different take on that now; any residual appeal has been replaced by sad compassion.

Some may wonder if the author wrote the book for the money (which isn't essentially a wrong motivation to me); or to shock people who disdained her sexual freedom; or to expose something which needed to be addressed (undressed). Knowing what her motivations were (if she even knows or cares) is none of my business, except that as a parapsychologist I often speculate about motives. At this point I don't care about her reasons for writing THE HAPPY HOOKER as much as I care that:

Miracles happen. They're part of reality, too.

And I care that every one of us has continual choices in life.

My personally designed motto:

Each increment of time and consciousness gives a choice and a second chance.

Thanks to Spenser, April had an OPTION out of the worst part of her life, but It appeared she didn't have a CHOICE.

I'm left with lots of questions and no comforting answers on this one.

I imagine Parker felt the same way, which may be why he returned to April in TAMING A SEA-HORSE, and HUNDRED-DOLLAR BABY.

With quiet reverence for life's soldiers,

Linda Shelnutt

I'll be honest, I'd have to look up the word ceremonious to be truly certain of its meaning, but that's not terribly important here. In short, it's a great book! I saw the TV movie first which made me want to read the book. It may have been the first Spenser movie I saw, although I used to watch the series when I was a kid. Guess that dates me a bit. I am a big fan of the Spenser series, and this is one of my favorite Spenser books along with Early Autumn. I've read eleven, so I'm sure there are more favorites to come. I think I am so crazy about this one because the outcome is so unusual. Unexpected. Maybe I'm biased...Robert B. Parker is my favorite author, but he is for a reason, and that reason is Spenser, Hawk, and Susan (among others). They are good characters. They make for good books. This is one of many, but it is one I highly recommend.

I read this book a little while ago, and it was great! The characters came to life, and I felt that I was there. I was a bit dissapointed in April Kyle's parents, how could they be so uncaring towards thier daughter. I will read Spenser again....