Customer Reviews

Chatter: A Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

She's done it again. As in her first novel, Ana Imagined, Ireland's airy writing style is both vivid and thought-provoking. I want to read it again to see what nuggets I may have missed the first time. I found myself laughing out loud at the disjointed and realistic communication between Michael and Sarah. She expertly captures casual banter between husband and wife in a way I've never seen. It provides comic relief against Sarah's insecurities over her husband's past and her sorrow over her ailing friend.

Chatter is a fresh, surprising, inventive page-turner, with witty observations about contemporary life and relationships alternating with darker reflections on politics, morality, and man's inhumanity to man. Terrorist chatter, echoes from the past, overheard conversations, and random bits from TVs and cellphones penetrate Sarah's mind; the swirling (and sometimes hilarious) stream of her consciousness gives us a prickly, smart, sensitive woman coping with a marital crisis in which the mysterious past comes home to roost. The book's got plot, style, sophistication, and class; it's very funny, and also deeply poignant. I loved it.

This is an intelligent, compelling, affecting novel, which is, concurrently, wildly funny. Covering issues far beyond marriage and adultery and the complexities of family and friendship, it explores issues of international import. Joan Didion meets Woody Allen.

Chatter has earned its critical plaudits; the novel is well-crafted, humorous, and spare (think Lorrie Moore or Amy Hempel) with a style matching its subject matter--the cacophony of information bombarding us in contemporary life. On another level, the book is a love story, with much to say about marriage, stepfamilies, and friendship, with a dash of politics and global entanglement. A book of strong literary quality (recently singled out for praise by noted librarian and radio commentator Nancy Pearl). Refreshingly unconventional, in a world where original voices have a harder and harder time competing with more formulaic works

I'm confused by all the glowing reviews here. Is it the author's family? Yes, the author uses unique style techniques to differentiate herself, but a) it doesn't compensate for the lack of content and b) they seem like tricks a high school student in a creative writing class might experiment with before moving on to more sophisticated methods. For instance, I didn't find using periods instead of question marks at the end of sentences terribly compelling. I did see where the author attempted to be funny, but compared to so many genuinely good books out there, this is very weak by comparison. Her concept for the book is good, but the execution fell very flat. You can almost picture the author with her thesaurus attempting to reach some minimum quota of adjectives for each sentence. All would have been better served if she had simply stuck to focusing on the plot. I would recommend this book only if there is nothing else to read and you are in the mood for fluff.

"Chatter: to talk rapidly, incessantly, and on a trivial subject" (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd college edition). The title of this novel is most appropriate for the random, staccato form of writing. Conversations make abrupt changes from "We have eggplant parmesan." in one sentence to "Did your ancestors own slaves?" two sentences later. The blurb on the back of the book tells us it is a book about a marriage, secrecy and the world around us. After 50 pages, I just didn't care.

Boston Globe--

" . . . the novel's touch is light, the dialogue funny. Still, the novel is more than merely clever. Ireland treats her characters with tenderness, portraying how they experience the world, and ultimately holding out a note of hope. She wrings meaning from the slightest of gestures . . . Sarah wins our sympathy, as an everywoman seseking, against the odds, a place of safety and comfort."

New York Times Book Review--

" . . . this humor-terror nexus that Ireland so charmingly brings to life."