Customer Reviews

Novel

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

 

 

The thing I enjoyed most about this book-besides the new take on humor-was that it actually moves along at a fine reading pace. So often nowadays writers are overly in love with their own writing and their editors seem to lack the stuff to make them stop. A good novel is always about the writer and the reader sitting down together and getting a story told. It was a real joy to get into this book and my only regret was that it could have been longer.
Singleton is mistakenly branded a Southern writer but in the same context is John Irving a New York writer or Robert Parker a Boston writer? Many of the passing references to southern idioms seem genuine and add flavor,like tabasco to the chili,but chili is still chili. I would say this is a unique voice telling a good story without dragging it out or overly embellishing it. Like the best stories it is spoken in the first person familar.
First and foremost almost every page has a unique spin offered on something ordinary-and like a homespun tapestry-there is a larger purpose but those stitches are important. There are a number of fresh images-like sneezing to lose weight-or the hilarious image of a cheetah allergy-that keep the work and the reader on the mark.
This is the effort of a talented writer who wants to tell you a story and he will not give you something conventional,filtered and regurgitated so you can relax. Unlike so many other books the reader is pulled into the details of the telling so the story becomes your own. There is always a subtext of the funny going on that is not canned or spammed-this alone merits critical review.
I found myself wanting to remember certain images and idioms for they had unique value. Add it all up and the book is a good solid,fresh read and an even finer job of unique story telling.
I don't buy that many books but I enjoyed this enough to write a review of it and buy a copy for a friend.

According to the back cover of the book, George Singleton is a `master of the comic short story'. He has been published in some pretty impressive places, and I like humorous prose, so I thought I might be in for a treat.

Novel is written in the first person, narrated by a man named Novel who spends a significant chunk of the story trying to write a novel. Because of a divorce surrounded by an odd series of events, he finds himself in the backwater South Carolina town of Gruel. Gruel is populated by an odd assortment of characters, but it is a dying town. The locals are convinced that Novel's novel will put them on the map, and rekindle the economy of the town.

The book is written in a rambling, meandering style that took me along with it. The opening two-thirds of the book is about our narrator bumbling along, becoming increasingly paranoid, and telling and retelling his history -- which changes, evolving in a very interesting way. There's a lot of foreshadowing in the opening 75%, which is to say we haven't really got to the plot yet.

Mr. Singleton's humor shows through, as do his short-story leanings. In a short story he wouldn't have had time to beat some of the jokes into the ground with such force. (For instance, his adoptive older siblings are named James and Joyce, and "James, Joyce, Novel" is worked pretty hard.) Other parts seem like they're in there to set up some sort of comic payoff, but never come through.

One of the jokes Singleton beats on quite often is "Books about writing novels say never to do..." and then in the next sentence he breaks that rule. He breaks a lot of rules in this book, and seems to think that pointing out that he knows he is breaking the rule makes it all right. Usually what he accomplishes is to demonstrate by counterexample that the rules exist for a reason. Rules are made to be broken, but not just so you can point at the rule like a proud three-year-old who just broke a vase.

The town has secrets, lots of secrets. As we learn more about the people of Gruel, we discover that they are not the simple, naïve country bumpkins we first thought. Oh, no, not at all. That's pretty cool. But wait -- their plans for Novel is woefully simple-minded. How do these savvy people ever buy into it? The contradiction is never resolved; in fact, Singleton is caught in his own trap. All the characters he introduces are against the grand scheme for Novel. He can't show us any of the people who think the plot is a good idea, because they would betray the inherent contradiction.

At the end, lots of things happen. Everything comes to a head, people are coming out of nowhere (James and Joyce? But why?), and our boy Novel is in the thick of it. Then a Huge Coincidence occurs, and everyone shrugs and goes home again, nothing changed, nothing resolved, and a lot unexplained; humor pistols loaded in the first act lie undischarged in the third.

The book grinds to a stop leaving a big a pile of unresolved events that we had passed, events I assumed would have some sort of significance. Just why the hell did the owner of the surplus store want Novel to find the knives buried behind the hotel? As I closed the book, I felt like there was some big explanation I'd missed (other than the big explanation that's in there, that just added to my questions). I suspect it never left the author's head and found its way to the page.

Just because an author is writing a farce doesn't mean he can just throw out a new coincidence or oddity whenever he loses momentum; everything still has to hang together and make sense in that farcical context. I don't think Mr. Singleton has learned that lesson yet. I do look forward to reading some of his short stories.

I'll admit I haven't quite finished "Novel" yet, and I will complete my slog through it with grim determination, but overall I'll say I have NO idea what the author is trying to accomplish. It's not funny, it's not linear (it's not telling anything resembling a coherent story), and the characters are not believable. An amateur effort at best. Perhaps the author attended a writing school similar to the one Novel tries to run in this novel and thinks because he received some trite and elementary-level instruction on how to write, he can write.

He can't. Not really. It's a lot of words strung together, but it's disjointed and ultimately uninteresting. Avoid it.

Upon the accidental death of Rebekah Aker's last surviving relatives, she uses the proceeds of the estate to start the business of her dreams, a weight-loss clinic, the Sneeze 'n' Tone, in Gruel, South Carolina, suggesting at the same time that husband Novel quit his job driving the Viper-Mobile. In this vehicle, Novel goes from town to town, displaying to interested parties a variety of reptiles. What Bekah doesn't know: Novel has a second job, writing speeches for politicians, notably lieutenant-governors. What Novel doesn't know: Bekah has a few secrets herself.

The couple eventually separates and Bekah closes the Sneeze 'n' Tone, which Novel reopens as The Gruel Inn Writer's Retreat. The paying writer-residents are offered a complimentary continental breakfast from Maura-Lee Snipes, owner of the Gruel Bakery and a former successful client of the Sneeze 'n' Tone. Maura-Lee is doing well with her specialty bread prepared with Jesus crust. But Novel hasn't the patience for these pseudo-writers, continental breakfast aside, and closes down the Writer's Retreat to live there himself, working on his autobiography...but that's another story.

When his writing experiment is less than successful, Novel accepts a position as the official Gruel Historian, working from his office at Gruel Normal School, a windowless silo filled with shelves of newspaper clippings. While doing his research, Novel addresses questions about Gruel that have nagged at his subconscious, but never imagines the whole picture. Then Bekah steps in, convincing her husband to protect his own self-interests.

There is a cast of characters in this book that would shake any family tree to its roots: Bekah's parents, wealthy entrepreneurs who engineer a constant supply of industrious orphans; Larry and Barry, the town housepainter-geniuses; and James and Joyce, Novels' adopted siblings. Then there is "Jeff the owner", proprietor of Roughhouse Billiards; Victor Dees of the Army Surplus store; Novel's pot-smoking, yoga-practicing parents, Ted and Olivia Akers, who believe themselves infertile, and a variety of inter-related families: "Your family should have named you Short Story, if anything, or Poem".

Novel is constantly distracted by a surplus of curiosity and paranoia concerning his Gruel neighbors, Singleton's protagonist the perfect foil for the quasi-nefarious dealings of Gruel, ever hopeful and disinclined to cynicism unless pushed to the edge of believability. It takes a vivid and warped imagination to create a tale with broad comic strokes, but more than enough humanity to make us root for these weirdos. Most families have skeletons in the family closet, but Singleton fearlessly rattles each and every one as they perform their macabre burlesque. Anything's possible in Gruel, South Carolina. Besides, any novel titled Novel, with a picture of a jackalope on the cover has to be worth the price of admission. Luan Gaines/2005.