Customer Reviews

Mystery Ride

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This author has an ear; he sets down the words of Iowa farm folk with pitch-perfect accuracy. Set in both California and Iowa, Mystery Ride tracks the lives of a divorced couple, their daughter, friends, neighbors, and new families. The portrait of Dulcie, a teen as disturbing as she is disturbed, is especially wrenching. The author absolutely refuses to pretty her up. You have to love her, anyway. The opening passage of this book comes close to literary perfection. I read it, I sighed, and I reread it. The writing is luminous. The plot moves swiftly while remaining mercifully free of gimmicks. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a thoughtful, humorous, realistic novel.

Robert Boswell's work has been uneven, but in this novel he pulls everything together. The blazing romance and failed marriage of Stephen and Angela is one of the subtlest and most insightful portraits of real love in modern literature. Dulcie, their daughter, is an unforgettable holy terror who brings out the worst in everyone around her and very nearly steals the show. Boswell never takes the obvious road in this story--Dulcie makes sure that everything will go awry at one point or another. But her savage humor and flair for anarchy, brilliant as they are, only serve to highlight what may be Boswell's greatest feat: his portrayal, in Stephen, of a truly contented man. Happiness is a hard thing to write about, but Boswell does it and still keeps you turning the pages. Tremendous stuff.

The "Mystery Ride" in Robert Boswell's 1992 novel of that name is marriage, or perhaps life itself. Angela and Stephen were married young, had a daughter, Dulcie, then divorced. Each remarried, and spends much of this novel examining whether they made the right choices, and realizing that what's past is prologue. Stephen remains on his farm in Iowa, where he struggles with the business and regrets. Angela, who has custody of Dulcie, moves to California, where she marries a husband whom she realizes is adulterous, but whom she still loves dearly. Dulcie, as a teenager, is hopelessly screwed up, and her parents hope that some time on dad's farm might help matters. Above all else, this is a very good story about people we can't help but care about. A very good book.

Boswell has touched upon something profound in Mystery Ride. Through a richly drawn family of characters and their subtle, complex interactions, he has instructed us about the nature of true love, without over-romanicizing it. This is a work so delicately beautiful and bittersweet that the reader is frequently moved to tears, and comes away from it loving life, treasuring loved ones, feeling wiser.

I've had Mystery Ride sitting on my shelf for years and finally finished it a couple of weeks ago. While I agree with what many people here have said I do have some critics of the book.

On the plus side, the writing is just gorgeous. It's poignant, humorous, and contains extremely complex truths written with simple beauty. I really liked the descriptions of the farm and Stephan's relationship to the land and his cows--full of love and yet completely unsentimental. I also enjoyed how Boswell contrasted religious faith against the secular without seeming to come down on one side or the other, rather it's just people making different choices. Finally, I thought the ending was absolutely brilliant, but I wont' write too much about it here in an effort not to spoil the book for those who haven't' read it.

However, Mystery Ride had its share of problems. First of all I disagree with what people said about Dulcie. Rather than just "troubled" she seemed extremely cruel, almost psychotic, and I couldn't' understand why her parents didn't' take stronger measures with her. Peeing in the car, taking a crap on a boy's lap, killing a cow, never doing what anyone asks, treating all the people around her with rudeness and contempt, and an irrational hatred of her mother all make Dulcie seem like a severely disturbed person. If the book were written today--post Columbine--rather than in a more innocent time, I think Boswell would have had to lighten up her character.

My other problem with Mystery Ride is its editing. I think the novel would have benefited greatly from being trimmed by 50 pages as there were too many passages describing tiny interactions and details that, to my eye, added nothing to the plot or themes.

That said, it was a great read, and I would recommend it albeit with caveats.

Somewhere towards the end of this incredible book, Robert Boswell writes, "What was your life anyway but the tiny black spot of what you've done against the infinite white of possibility?"

Mystery Ride (from a Springsteen song about marriage) focuses on those possibilities. What we have and what we lose. What we love and what we endure. What we become as we grow older and what we were when we still had the world at our fingertips. And ultimately, what we do to muddle through and how we find ourselves still standing decades later.

Angela and Stephen Landis wed in the 1960s and they never quite fall out of love, although Angela DOES let her illusions fall away. She does not feel she can stay on the small Iowa farm that has captivated Stephen, so she leaves, taking their daughter Dulcie with her. Dulcie is, perhaps, one of the most compelling portraits of teenage angst I have read since -- oh, I don't know -- Holden Caulfield perhaps. She is rebellious, unstable, angry, and willing to do whatever it takes to strike out against her mother -- including urinating in the car.

Dulce navigates the world between her parents. Angela has remarried a philandering husband named Quin; Stephen, too, has moved in his new woman friend, Leah, and her naive young daughter, Roxy. Boswell cross-cuts a number of events that span two decades, slowly and deliciously revealing how we stumble through to some idea of our own truths.

As Boswell sets his sights on "what it means to living a moral life", one of the characters asks Stephen, "I don't mean any disrespect, Mr. Landis, but why go on? Why bother?" Stephen's answer: "Because there are cows to feed."

There are scenes that will be seared in my mind -- rich, satisfying, memorable scenes that elevate Robert Boswell as a top-tier writer. But why should I spoil the fun for readers who haven't discovered this poignant book? For those who haven't read it, it's time to take your own mystery ride...sooner rather than later.

A good look at the struggles of a broken American family. The desperate acts of the teenage daughter are graphically depicted and will make any mother's heart ache. Strongly recommended for anyone interested in the realities of the American family today. This was my first Boswell but it won't be my last.

Set in the farmlands of Iowa in the 1970s and 80s, this novel is a rather sobering, convincing look at the miscommunications, possibilities, and compromises that are integral to relationships and families. Stephen and Angela, recently married, bought a small farm as part of a back-to-the-earth sentiment in '71 with no firm long-term outlook. Hit with the realization that she quite well could be stuck in a bleak environment for the rest of her life, Angela precipitates a divorce after only six years, despite her feelings for Stephen, and winds up in Los Angeles, living with her daughter Dulcie and a new husband Quin.

Fast forward another ten years. Angela is dismayed to discover that Quin is having yet another affair, but is totally nonplussed by the rebellious Dulcie. A cross-country drive to leave Dulcie with Stephen for the summer is a mother's nightmare: hostility resounds; Dulcie whacks off her hair, chugs soft-drinks, and maliciously urinates on the front seat. To complicate matters, Stephen had recently invited a woman and her teenage daughter to live with him, whom Dulcie relentlessly attacks for her passivity.

Over the next year, scenes shift with any number of encounters and developments that are often conflictual, even painful, which must be resolved in some manner. These characters are forced to dig a little deeper, to find the realistic ground on which they are willing stand and how they can relate to those in their lives. Stephen, Quin, Angela, and even Dulcie - all come to understand that perfection in their lives is not going to be found.

While perhaps not deeply philosophical, the book is insightful, though it, at times, verges on the tedious. For instance, the author manages to deal delicately with the commonality that a religious perspective might have with atheism. The characters, flaws and all, are reasonably compelling - their actions and decisions reflective of who they are or have become. Dulcie may be the most interesting and least understood. Yet, finally she begins to exhibit the acceptance of life that the author desires for all of his characters.

I am utterly nonplussed that this book is out of print. This novel, this arresting and wholly authentic portrait of late twentieth-century family life, deserves an emblem that says: timeless, exemplary. Robert Boswell portrayed these contemporary characters originally and credibly, seducing the reader from the opening prologue to the masterful ending. There were no false notes, no manipulations of narrative or person. It germinates beautifully, organically.

Angela and Stephen Landis are divorced, but their six years of marriage produced a daughter, Dulcie, now 15. Angela is remarried to the promiscuous Quin, a theater agent who genuinely loves her, but is a serial cheater. Angela left Stephen because she didn't want to be a farmer's wife anymore. She begged him to give up their farm and their struggle to stay afloat in the farm's punishing Iowa landscape. Even Stephen doesn't like being a cattle farmer, but husbandry got hold of him, and he can't let go.

"True, as he inevitably pointed out, they had chosen the farm together...Now the farm seemed to her a prison, not only because of its isolation, but because it meant her unhappiness had its source in his pleasure. It pitted them against each other."

They still loved each other when Angela left, but her departure was a shattering blow for Stephen.

Dulcie has become incorrigible. Actually, incorrigible is putting it mildly. She could crush Holden Caulfield between her knees. She is wild, sometimes menacing, possibly disturbed, and her mother, approaching forty and fed-up, decides to send Dulcie to spend the summer with Stephen. In the meantime, Stephen has finally allowed himself to engage in a relationship. He has invited Leah, his paralegal girlfriend, and Leah's 14 year-old spiky daughter, Roxanne, to come live with him.

There is a scene toward the beginning of the book, where Angela, naked except for a bathrobe, is forced to follow Dulcie as she sneaks out to skinny dip at the beach with friends. The scene is so appallingly captivating, so riveting, that I knew I was in the hands of a brilliant artist.

This is a solid and often poetic read. Never quirky or breezy or whimsical, this combination of outlaw and marginalized characters are adamantine, fierce, seductive. Even Boswell's secondary characters are powerful, unbreakable.

I was alternately agonized and appalled. Boswell holds your heart in the palm of his hand. I laughed uncomfortably; I was pinned by his savage story; I cried out loud. For a penetrating story and complex characters with real gravitas, Mystery Ride has all the quality elements--ripe and vicious, vulnerable and noble, piercing and singular.

"Mystery Ride" is a frenetic story of a family both torn apart and bound together by sad yet funny circumstances. Angela and Steven are divorcees who couldn't keep their marriage together on their farm in Iowa. Angela flees to California with Dulcie, the couple's not-so-sweet daughter. Dulcie is an amazing character. She's ungrateful, mis-guided, self-obsessed, and arrogant -- a veritable Barry Bonds of the chick-lit genre. Her antics border on the insane and have to be read to be believed. Parents can surely find a little Dulcie in their own teenaged kiddoes.

"Mystery Ride" is an easy book to read and an easy one to enjoy. The characters ride the rollercoaster of life with teeth-clenching determination and admirable good humor. Boswell doesn't sugar-coat the tension and angst which pervade the family's life. You can't help but experience a bit of schadenfreude as the story unfolds. Like watching "Fargo", there's a certain guilty satisfaction in observing the larger-than-life problems of a fictionalized cast of characters.