Customer Reviews

Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery

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

 

 

I completely disagree with the Kirkus review.It would be nice if all books that were coming out today were as beautifully written, as innovative and as heartwarming--eventually--as this one. Oftentimes, you get a book that's been given outstanding reviews and it isn't worth a damn. This is quiet and new and seems to renew itself from one page to the next, getting better and better. It only took me a few days to finish this but I would like to read it again and again, because I have a feeling there are so many things I didn't get the first time around. This is one of the best books I've ever read---I find it hard to believe that anyone can even write--think, even--like this.

Being an avid fan of books placed in New Orleans, I picked up this book and was very pleasantly surprised! That a man can write a book so well from a woman's perspective is amazing to me. I thought the characters were very well written and the interplay of the races in the South was excellent.

I also don't agree with the Kirkus review, I am enjoying this book enormously. The author does a great job of giving the different narrators of the story unique voices. He also has rare insight into the heart of a woman. I am looking forward to other books by this author.

A brilliantly written, beautifully evocative story that tries much too hard to be profound. The author has a lived-in knowledge of human nature as well as descriptive genuis...but his pretentious tone and feeble epiphanies weigh the story down. The title is very apt: the atmosphere of the book bogs down into a fancy Gothicism that seems largely decorative. The emotions of the story remain mild and vaporous. A frustrating waste of the author's gifts.

"Decorations..." first reminded me of an Anne Tyler situation, plunked down in the middle of Louisiana. As I stuck with the three separate narratives (not what one could call a plot), the history of this family struck me as a ribbon being unwound before our eyes; the theme of the statuary leading the way through a mulatto's childhood, to his (narrator) daughter's quadroon point of view, then to the (narrator) black servant, and, tying all the pieces into a giant knot, the three letters from an estranged wife. who could be considered the third narrator. The idea of using a collapse of the Pontchartrain Causeway as a catalyst for both reunion and estrangement was clever enough. However, the author manages to also use miscegenation myths and realities to bring the reader full circle into the primary narrator's life. As the narrative whips backward and forward through the marriages, the births, the losses, the secrets, the reader gains a wild understanding of New Orleans social history and a brave insight into the development of a child's mind. Making her a twin=icing on the cake (not to mix metaphors!!!) Some reviewers have criticized the structure of this first novel; however, I think it perfect for the telling. Thank you, Mr. Brown!

Why not 5 stars? The beginning. I think the first 50 pages might discourage a reader who is not interested in New Orleans, first-person narrative, or murky references to characters we can't yet know. I might have begun the book with one of Catherine's letters; however, this criticism is a minor one. Consider this a novel well worth the effort. Brown's symbolism and metaphors showcase a phenomenal brain.

A mess of a tale jumps all over the place, leaves the reader breathless with frustration....even at the end the reader wonders, "What the heck?" A waste of time and a long way to go for a big reveal of a mystery still unsolved. Did she leave or was she killed and who killed her? Too confusing and unpleasurable to read to be enjoyable.

The book came very quickly and in perfect condition. I also loved the book.