Customer Reviews

DEXTERITY.

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

 

 

Many things to recommend this book: well-written prose (sometimes much too "poetic" for the world it's trying to describe and very heavy on adjectives), great dialogue, finely-etched characters. The problem is plotting, pacing and the nature of the main character, Ramona. At times I just didn't believe in her, nor did I quite understand or sympathize with her actions. (Okay, the husband's a brute, but why ditch the baby? And then to feel such little remorse?) Unfortunately, she remains ultimately an enigmatic character (and there's a whole not very interesting sequence where she watches a neighbor across the street...) and not quite compelling enough for a novel. Her husband, too, is much too self-pitying to take seriously and he simply takes too long to act -- pages and pages of him just brooding and getting drunk and lamenting his loneliness before he gets off his butt to find Ramona; it takes way too long to get there. Still, Dexterity is way above most books written today, and for that alone, it is worth reading, as Bauer at least tries to get at some real issues and isn't just concerned with how clever he is.

As for the reviewer below me who compares the prose to Chandler's -- the comparison couldn't be further off. Bauer is a word-rich writer, much more like a southern writer (Faulkner and Styron come to mind...), and yes, sometimes falls into the web of his own words, threatening to stall the story. But Chandler? Come, now.

The reviewers said that this book's elegant prose sometimes overwhelmed and obscured its story. I happen to be a sucker for that kind of writing, where the real action is in the twists and modulations of the syntax. But in the end I was a bit disappointed by the book's prose, which is more Raymond Chandler than Raymond Carver. The book's characters and the things that happen to them are not very convincing, either. The arbitrariness of the plot reminded me of the novels of John Irving: if you can't give a character a rich interior life, then why not have her lose her hand in a bizarre accident and then raise her baby using a prosthesis?

This book has a nice leisurely yet disturbing pace to it- a lot like a David Lynch film. Not to give away too much of the simple plot, I found the main character's journey on the road to be frightening and beautiful. I honestly felt completely alone reading this book, even on the train.

A woman refuses to live her life in quiet desperation, instead starts an improbable escape only to be called back by her son.