Customer Reviews

Effigy

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

 

 

I started this book at the 5 star level and then wound my way down to 2 stars, ending at 3 because the ending somewhat rescued the book for me. The prose is indirect, poetic and oblique and you have to strain not to miss a cue, which I did not mind, but the fractured shifting of viewpoints irritated me after awhile, especially when many of the characters' back-stories had to be accounted for. I began to lose track of who's back story was who's, until they all came full circle and the present story got underway.

When a story is fragmented so much(some point-of-view sections were less than half a page long) in order to keep the reader guessing, one wonders whether the core story itself had much intrinsic drama in it. And how often can the author open each section in the present story and immediately take her characters back into the past to fill in the holes in that tapestry that she herself has decided to render to us in fragments?
I've come across books like this increasingly in the last couple of years, and wonder if this seems to be an emerging style - the patchwork quilt variety. It makes me wonder what happened to the art of telling a story - to the art of going from A to Z sequentally and gripping your reader all the way, rather than jump all over the alphabet and finally arrive at Z to have your reader ask you - "are we there yet?"

Shane Joseph [...]

Believe it or not, a real wolf and an imaginary crow figure prominently in the impressive array of essential characters in this novel. Not that it is lacking in plot, but clearly, it is more of a character-driven, imagistic work.
Erastus Hammer is a four-wived Mormon horse-rancher in 1860's Utah. Because of his failing eyesight he is forced to pursue his greatest passion [the shooting of animals] by relying on his Native American guide, Tracker. Erastus claims the spoils, but Tracker fires the shots.
Erastus selected his fourth wife, Dorrie, specifically for her unique talents at taxidermy. She faithfully "resurrects" all of the carcasses deposited at her workshop, but seems to be having an unusually difficult time bringing a certain wolf pack to life.
There is so much I could say about the diversity of Hammer's four wives. Of the way the title of the book relates to its content. Of the guilt and longing in the heart of Tracker. Of the winding way that "Bendy" Drown becomes a farmhand on the ranch, or how he becomes the agent whereby Dorrie herself is resurrected. Of the foreboding terror a vengeful wolf wreaks upon the household as he howls at night, stalking the perimeter of the homestead. Of the rich way the author reveals the horror of the [real-life] Mountain Meadow Massacre, which took place in 1857 when a wagon train from Arkansas en route to California was ambushed. Dorrie survived this horror, as she will survive the dreadfulness of being Erastus Hammer's wife. Instead of providing synopsis, I would point you towards the book itself and encourage you to pick it up.

The beauty of Effigy involves the intricacy of the threadwork. Grimness delivered with grace. Through letters, flashbacks, dreams, insights into the hypocrisy of religious devotion gone awry, and ever-eloquent narration, Alissa York has provided me with one of my favorite reads of 2008.
Effigy is a wonderful patchwork-quilt of a novel. Eerie, ominous, riveting and intricate. Searing in the end, and delicious [albeit bittersweet] in revenge and reward.
The author has said, "I want people to really feel a lot. It's not my goal to just make people think. I want them to think, but I want them, more than anything, to feel."
Here in Effigy, she succeeds at both things.