Customer Reviews

Judge Savage: A Novel

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

 

 

Simply put, this is the best contemporary novel I have read in a few years. Multilayered, complex, and humane, the novel is a tour de force in capturing a man (and family) in crisis. Weaving issues of race, marriage, family, work, and the legal system into a coherent and humane whole, Mr. Parks has produced a fine and gripping work digging into the consciences of his characters to illuminate the messiness that is daily life. In Daniel, Parks has created one of the most indelible characters in modern fiction. There are no easy answers to be had in this book, but the attempts to get there have rarely been so rewarding for readers.

parks has written terrific nonfiction about italy, and terrific novels, too, but this is absolutely one of his best--a lively, believable tale, a great protagonist (almost clintonian in his intellect and inability to stay out of trouble), and a really good cast of secondary characters as well. pure pleasure, as a reading experience, something I rarely ever feel, and I read more novels than most. highly and totally recommended.

Daniel Savage, a "colored man of obscurely mixed origin" and adopted child of white parents, is a lawyer who has been "promoted" to Judge in England's Crown Court. Story set in late 90's / early 2000's. Similar to the themes of the author's later books "Europa" and "Cleaver", the story is centered around its main character (Daniel Savage), who is a man in crisis. Savage's serial philandering come to the surface and place him at risk - his life at risk with the Korean Mob - his marriage of 20 years at risk - his relationships with his children at risk - and finally his professional position with the court is placed at risk. He shares his travails with his best friend Martin, who is in the throws of what appears to be severe depression - who pushes Savage to "come clean." The story then weaves in some compelling legal cases that are presented in front of Judge Savage. Savage's conscience runs overtime with guilt - he tries to do the right thing and he finds himself further entangled.

Tim Parks is a master of placing you in the mind and thoughts of its principal character. The interior monologue is weaved in and out of Savage's conversations and Savage's personal thoughts so you are along for the ride with him the entire way. Parks' writing extends beyond a simple murder/who-done-it mystery as he shares some of the major struggles of social and individual day-to-day life at the time.

I found the story line somewhat underwhelming (3-rating out of 5) but the quality of Park's writing to be best-in-class (6-rating out of 5) to average down to a 4.

Andrew Riemer, the Herald's book reviewer, said it best in his review of this book: "it's how well you write (and with how much integrity), not what you write about, that makes for compelling fiction."

My ratings scheme with 10 being high grade:

Page Turner: 7
Memorable: 6
Character Development: 10
Live the Story: 7
Flow / Easy to Follow: 8

This book does have the basic ingredients more or less right. The story is convincing (but not compelling) and the characters are well rendered. However, only the main character is developed sufficiently for the reader to understand his motivations.

I enjoyed the book but was disappointed in two important ways. Firstly, there is no real 'ending', the story just fizzles out, exactly as if Mr. Parks had lost interest in it and wanted to move on to something else. Secondly, an important revelation does not appear; the effect is as if the author couldn't find something plausible and thus chose to simply forget about it.

So deduct a star for the the above two points. Deduct another one for the clumsy style in which dialogue is written without quotation marks. The effect of this is that the reader frequently has to skip back a sentence or two to be sure which character actually spoke. This is a shame because otherwise I would say that Mr. Parks' use of language and style is quite excellent.

In short, a good read somewhat spoiled by its failure to live up to its promise.

I found this novel as engrossing as Europa, or more so, and extremely enjoyed its storyline and prose structure.