Customer Reviews

Letter from Point Clear: A Novel

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

 

 

A lovely character piece that won't reinvent the novel, but does charm with it's simplicity. When Morris and Ellen receive a letter from their estranged sister Bonnie, they are moved into action. It seems the theatrical sibling has gotten married to a young minister and they are now living in the house the children have grown up in. With both parents being dead, Morris and Ellen head off to Alabama with the intent of meeting this man they're sure is going to take advantage of their sisters financial means, while also finally addressing whether they're ready to let their childhood home go.Morris has his own issues with his sister marrying a minister since he's been married to a man for the past fifteen years. McFarland's writing is fluid and beautiful, and many times it feesl like you're watching a play. I confess I kept waiting for something momentous to happen, but didn't feel disappointed in any way that something didn't. Ultimately reading this felt like peering through a keyhole into some other people's lives.

Discriptions are accurate and vivid, characters are well-developed, well created and well drawn, but the story was lacking, sometimes predictable, sometimes a stretch. The characters, so well drawn, so real and so alluring, deserved a better, more believable, less predictable, story.

Went into this book with high hopes, but mostly felt disappointment. The characters clunked along in a predictable story with an attempt at a surprising ending. The whole thing fell kind of flat.

If you, as I do, adore domestic realism spiced with dry wit, oblique cultural references, exchanges that don't require authorial intrusion as to meaning, all taking place within marriage and/or four walls of a house, look no further. This is literary fiction at its best: a story based on the characters, not on their actions. Morris is petualant and petty, Ellen is distant and unnecessarily unfulfilled, and Bonnie is rash and probably spoiled, but I'd like to hang out with all of them. You can have your circus stories and your chick lit, I'll take Letter From Point Clear. And check out Tessa Hadley's The Master Bedroom or Accidents In The Home.

I have read about 12 books this summer and this is the one that really stands out and lingers in my mind. The heart, the neurosis and especially the wit of the central family echoes Salinger in a way that reminded of why I love Salinger. The writing is beautiful and the characters complex. It is a cliche to say that I was sad to finish it but it is true. I cannot think of a recent book I have enjoyed more.

There is nothing quite like sinking your teeth into a good novel, and Dennis McFarland certainly knows how to dish one up. His prose is elegant, his dialogue filled with dry, satirical wit and his insights into human nature both subtle and profound.

In a McFarland novel the question is not what happens, but who happens. In Letter From Point Clear, the "whos" are three siblings: Ellen, the doubt-filled eldest daughter who is struggling to find meaning in her marriage; Bonnie, the baby of the family, an impulsive, off-kilter, would-be actress; and Morris, the acerbic middle brother. When Ellen receives a letter explaining that Bonnie has gotten married to an Evangelical minister in Alabama, Ellen and Morris rush to the rescue, believing that Bonnie has yet again made a horrendous mistake. The mistake, of course, is that Bonnie has neglected to inform her husband, ironically named Pastor, that her brother is gay--and married to Richard. What inevitably ensues is Pastor's misguided attempt to "rescue" Morris from his sinful "lifestyle."

Like McFarland's previous novels, the characters are so vividly drawn that they seemed to leap off the page. The interactions between Morris and Pastor, especially, are humorous, tense, and filled with unexpected twists and turns. And while the conflict between Pastor and Morris is inevitable, the dramatic high point is hardly formulaic. The "Alabama" portion of the book had me turning the pages, laughing out loud, eager for the next confrontation. Unfortunately, this scrumptious filling was not matched by the quality of the bread that sandwiched it.

The beginning and end of this book were as bland as Wonderbread. I was tempted to put the novel down on many occasions during the "Cape Cod" segment at the beginning. Ellen's inner life simply wasn't interesting. Though the book picked up substantially in the middle, it ended as it began--slowly, with a meandering fuzziness that didn't match the pointed exchanges that so enlivened the "Alabama" section of the book. Finishing on such a weak note left me feeling distinctly hungry. With his wonderful characters, and with the ludicrous situation McFarland had thrust them into, he could have done a better job of serving up a plot.

This was a wonderful read. The plot weaves between such dicey topics as religion, homosexuality, parents, siblings and all the connections between. The characters are thinkers, but possess an ability for introspection and self-doubt that makes them real, vulnerable, and humble, as they search for humility among their egos.
Dennis McFarland uses language gracefully, and with a smattering of perfect vocabulary and credible dialogue. Now and then I was reminded of two of my all-time favorite books: Light Years, by James Salter, and Crossing To Safety, by Wallace Stegner. I was sad to reach the inevitable end, when loose ends were tied up somehow, and all the characters returned to their respective places from where the book began. Highly recommended.

What a joy! I can't remember enjoying a book so much - or so often wanting to shout "YES!" while reading one.

Dennis McFarland's latest "Letter From Point Clear" is the most touching, interesting and refreshing look at family and religion that I've read since Haven Kimmel's, "The Solace of Leaving Early" - another of my favorites. McFarland writes his characters without judgment or over-explanation; they are who they are and it's just precisely enough to make us care about them and want to turn the page to see what they are thinking next. I wanted them to be real people so that I could know them. Treat yourself to this wonderful story and these interesting and all-too-human characters.

I can't get this book out of my head. Not because I enjoyed it, but because it was awful. A wishy-washy beginning with no narrative hook; an unclimatic climax and a non-ending. It's very unfortunate, because there are so many kernals and nuggets of perfection in this novel. The narrator so intimate, yet so removed- seems to know so much about the story , that there is no point in sharing it with us, mere readers. Too much is alluded to, too much high handed, disconnected, non-humorous irony. So awful, I can't get over it.

Morris, who is gay, living in Massachusetts, gets a letter telling him that his wealthy younger sister Bonnie, back down in Alabama, where he was traumatized by homophobia as a child, has got herself married to an evangelical preacher and installed him in the family's ancestral mansion. He and another sister, Ellen, a poet, rush down to redneck country to rescue Bonnie from the clutches of the (assumed) bigoted money-hungry fanatic. When they get there Morris finds that things are not that bad, and that the preacher is well, hey, kind of cute.
That's a rather crude summary, and suggests a setup for a lot of dramatic and comic confrontations, of which there are plenty, but this book is far from crude. Everything is subtle and many-layered. The scene-setting, mostly on Mobile Bay and Cape Cod, is magnificent, and the dialog pitch-perfect and sophisticated.
The structure is artful, with a series of acts, each rising to a crescendo and ending on a cliffhanger. The story is told MPOV, with even the uneducated preacher given a sympathetic voice. There's no violence, and although there's a lot of sex it's never explicit. The only death is that of the family's alcoholic father, which precedes and triggers the story's main action, and is counter-pointed by a birth, which will come afterwards.

It took awhile for me to start enjoying the book; however, I found myself becoming more absorbed as the story progressed. Some of the characters were well developed, and it was easy to empathize with them. Very intelligently rendered and a very good read if you like a story about interpersonal dynamics. There were times when I laughed out loud, feeling like I had been there myself.