Customer Reviews

Lake Overturn: A Novel

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Vestal McIntyre's debut novel, Lake Overturn, is a vivid, multifaceted tale of small town America. Set in Eula, Idaho, the story's title comes from a real scientific phenomenon that occurred in a lake in Africa in the 1980s that killed thousands of people nearby. Two of the novel's young characters, Gene and Enrique, tackle the Lake Nyos disaster for a science project, trying to figure out exactly what happened.

I won't get into exactly what lake overturn is (assuming, like me, you didn't already know), but the catastrophic phenomenon works on many levels for this story. The event itself is a good starting point, especially where Enrique and Gene are concerned, but the title as a metaphor sums up the book in a unique way. As we get drawn into the lives of other Eula residents, we see that things are not always as they seem. With characters at very different crossroads of their lives, it's interesting to see what bubbles to the surface.

Wanda, a youngish woman, struggles with addiction as she tries to drown out the horrible events of her past. She decides to turn her life around by becoming a surrogate mother, thinking she's finally found her salvation.

Lina and Connie, both single mothers (of Enrique and Gene, respectively) live beside each other in a trailer park. Both face their own challenges with loneliness and new awakenings, whether it be an affair with a married man or a crush on a pastor.

Liz and Abby, best friends, can't wait to graduate high school and leave all their "stupid" Eula towns folks behind. They both end up distracted from their plans, however, when Liz is suddenly pursued by a secret admirer and Abby faces the death of her mother.

Other characters come into play, and each segment is almost like its own little story, broken up and spread throughout the book. In lesser hands, Lake Overturn could have turned out quite messy with so much going on (especially since the story is told from so many perspectives), but McIntyre manages to weave a classic tale that will leave you breathless by the final pages. It's amazing how so many larger issues - racism, homosexuality, death of a loved one, religion, extramarital affairs, addiction, isolation - are touched on in some way, yet the novel works as one coherent whole. Vestal McIntyre is an author to look out for, and I can't wait to read any of his future work.

Literary fiction takes many forms. Sometimes it takes the shape of social satire placed within a simple narrative, other times it takes the form of an author, self-aware of the words he or she places on the page, and even still, other times it takes the form of a complexly interwoven plot. Partly masterful and partly mundane, Vestal McIntyre's Lake Overturn follows the characters of a small town of Eula in rural Idaho. Even though the setting and characters in this book strikingly resemble Napoleon Dynamite, this book spends no time seeking to be a comedy. The foundational plot line upon which the narrative is built centers upon the frightening phenomenon occurring at Lake Nyos in Cameroon. At the lake, gas was released from the depths of the lake and suffocated every living animal around the lake. In the novel, two junior high boys attempt to study what would happen if the lake overturn phenomenon occurred in their small town.

Titled lake overturn, this phenomenon happens when deep lakes build up extremely concentrated levels of carbon dioxide. When the pressure becomes too much for the lake's surface to bear, carbon dioxide bubbles from the depths of the lake similarly to a shaken soda can. Correspondingly, McIntyre's novel builds through a complex narrative of multiple main characters before the pressure in each character's life releases as the novel opens up toward its end. In different ways, each character builds through depth and quality until their inner demons expose themselves in fantastic fashion. One character struggles with his sexuality, one seeks to find redemption from her addictive tendencies, and another despairingly searches for biblical answers to her ever-present loneliness.

The masterful portions of the book follow from these complex characters. McIntyre flawlessly switches between characters as they enter the story. Multiple times, one character runs into another in a paragraph and the next paragraph picks up on the new character's narrative. In writing this way, the author creates a complex web of relationships that truly place the focus on a small town community.

However, McIntyre's focus on narrative diminishes his artistic observation. Throughout my reading of this book, I never paused on a paragraph reflecting on a powerful observation or a striking metaphor. In Lake Overturn, McIntyre writes a story with no flashy frills or philosophical underpinnings. Nevertheless, he writes a compelling story, one I would recommend for its unique characters.

Originally published at Where Pen Meets Paper Blog

A story or stories about Mormons, Mennonites, Methodists and Mexicans, in 1986, in a small town in a part of Idaho that would be arid desert without the Snake River. Some characters journey to Boise, to Salt Lake City, where they penetrate the innermost Tabernacle sanctums, and even to Portland, where they meet people straight out of "Things White People Like." It does have a certain flavor of being collection of separate stories linked by the framing device of being set in a small town, but the interlinking is done so cleverly that narrative flow is not lost.
I tend to like novels that are leaner and meaner and funnier, but this is so good that I found myself compelled to read it to the end to find out what happened next to the characters I was interested in.
There are no patches of bad writing, but there are a few too many patches of good writing. McIntyre can write memorable stuff like " Wanda turned and witnessed the glowing Columbia bent into an S by the slopes of the gorge , which lay against each other like folds of fabric, each a paler shade of blue, off into the distance." That is wonderful prose. Evelyn Waugh or John Updike might have written it, but then they would have gone back over their manuscript and remorselessly cut it out. Elmore Leonard wouldn't have written it in first place, he'd have been getting on with the story.

I got the book after hearing about and devouring the author's short stories. The novel is like savoring a large glass of cold, complex beer on a hot day outside in the shade whereas one of McIntyre's short stories is a shot of whiskey in a bar on a cold night! Both are wonderfully detailed, complex and transport you to another world. The novel's characters are full and become familiar to the reader -- both in their seductive appeal as well as their darker sides. McIntyre draws you in with his story-telling, even as a part of you might resist the paths his characters test and take. The thrill and horror of life's very simple choices, no matter what the age of the character, is illustrated again and again with care, attention and compassion. I was constantly recollecting my own coming-of-age. The novel is magical in that it weaves a story and allows the reader to re-live his/her own story. It has incredible depth and just enough space. This novel is a vivid portrayal of growing up. A contemplation on how some dare to grapple with big issues in a very small community, and dare to explore and find their own natural place among circumstance and forces demanding conformity. I can't wait for his next work!

Please so not judge this novel by this ugly green jacket, explained in the book, because you could miss the best novel so far this year. If you remember Richard Russo's Empire Falls and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Lake Overturn is the same idea of well told story with great characters that never feel fake. The details are vivid and the feeling sincere. I found the conclusion surprising and moving. Move well beyond the vampire novels and see the talent McIntyre has.

I loved this book. The characters are so well created and portrayed that I couldn't help but get drawn into their lives. I thought this book would take me a month or so to get through and I finished it in 3 days. Thoroughly engrossing and definitely worth your time.

Vestal McIntyre's sometimes touchingly funny, sometimes heartbreaking view of residents of a small Idaho town (could be any small town America)provided an achingly realistic porait of a variety of characters as they live their everyday lives in the "quiet despiration" that is so much of our existance. These are characters that you will know - dealing with the same drives and pulls, acomplishments and frustrations that we live with everyday. Some succumb to the smallest temptations - some triumph over the biggest obsticles. Vestal deals gently with them all - from the teenage daughter helping her mother die with some dignity to the drug addict who tries to find a place to belong by being a surrogate mother.

Some readers want to figure everything out in the first few chapters of formula writing. What will this book become, what is the intended impact and how will I react?

Lake Overturn should be accepted and embraced on its own terms, a slice of life in small and somewhat isolated Eula, Idaho. The many characters are real and dynamic, at least to the central plot of the early maturation of two boys beginning junior high. Little uplifts the spirit here and few morality points are made throughout. We are not reading an author preaching anything predictable, but one who has a story to tell and tells it with depth, feeling and empathy for each character he creates. There is no struggle of good and evil, as it is hard to figure out which is which in some situations. Everyone has flaws, human frailties. And at some point, every principal character has his or her own charm and thread of sincerity, if not goodness.

At times you wish you could grab and shake a character and change the outcome. "Wake up, smell the coffee, figure this out and do it right," you feel like screaming. Alas, the characters do what perhaps they were predestined to do. So much human potential is lost, a few lives are waves crashing onto rocks, and yet the story is riveting to the end. Indeed, at the finish you might wish there be a sequel, but you know it was not meant to be. This is a piece of fiction not neatly wrapped up in the end. The story has been told and is done. You may well agree with me that this is one of your best memorable reads in the last year or two.

Earlier this year, Jen from Devourer of Books spent a week focusing on titles from Harper Perennial. One of the titles she featured was Lake Overturn. This book especially caught my eye because of the gorgeous cover and the title. It fit the Body of Water category for my What's in a Name 3 reading challenge, but most of all, I loved the torn piece of paper floating on water. Something about that image struck me. After reading the novel, I still think it fits really well.

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly how I was going to tackle this post. I enjoyed the book, but there is way too much that can and probably should be said about it. As you can see in the summary, there are quite a few characters that inhabit Eula, Iowa. None of them are insignificant. I spoke about this with Jen and we both agreed that Lake Overturn is a novel made up of several short stories sewn together by time, place, and theme. Enrique and Gene may seem to be the main characters at the offset. It is their experiment - something that I found very fascinating - which provides this book its title. However, there is way too much going on in Lake Overturn for that to be true. They do not disappear in the middle of the story by any means, but it's fair to say that their experiences serve as bookends for the novel.

While I liked Lake Overturn and think that McIntyre is a talented writer, the number of characters weighed me down. Partially this is because I started reading this before finishing other books. Reading in fits and spurts did not work well at all. I didn't catch traction until I started reading it exclusively. I kept wanting to compartmentalize certain story lines - parents versus students, growing up versus falling in love, etc... but it really is impossible because of the way that the characters are related to one another.

Taken as a whole, however, it does have a lot to say about the things you do not know that are happening to the people around you. Everyone was caught up in their own crisis virtually that it would have been very easy for them to overlook one another entirely. It's been quite a while since I've thought this much about structure in any depth.

Final Thoughts

Vestal McIntyre has written an interesting story that is more than the coming of age of two young men. It's about the coming of age of an entire town. I would suggest reading this novel when you have the opportunity to fully concentrate on it. With the number of characters, it's easy to lose track of who is who unless reading Lake Overturn is your primary focus.

Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre is one of the best books I have read in a very long while. It is a rare author who can introduce us to a cast of enchanting characters, while creating an intriguing story has well. McIntyre has succeeded on both counts.

Set in a typical Small Town, USA (Eula, Idaho), the reader is introduced to myriad personalities, each of whom the author gently breaths life into until you feel like you've known them your whole life. The story itself evokes themes of striving for excellence, as well as being mired in mediocrity. There are triumphs and failures. There are half truths and overwhelming dishonesty. We are brought along for the incredible ride as the characters search for their own personal joy.

McIntyre's writing style is evocative of Jeffrey Eugenides and Julia Glass. Hopefully he will be lauded as such or, at the very least, continue writing so we can enjoy his artistry.