Customer Reviews

The Obituary Writer

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

...while looking at books in a local bookstore, I had thumbed through this one and actually read the ending, then planned to put it back...good writing, but nothing I wanted to read.

But I forgot to put it back, as I stacked up books and there it was when I got home. I decided to read it anyway, even knowing the ending, and find that I'm glad I did.

Very well-written, with a clever, poignant plot, this is a story that will stick with you. The narrator is Gordie, a young writer who wants to achieve the same fast success his mother reminds him (constantly) that his deceased father managed to find.

It's hard to say what needs to be said about this very good book without giving things away.

Gordie starts at the bottom, as an obit writer, low-end in the newspaper world - under the supervision of an aging, failed writer and editors who stab at Gordie's eager ego every time he attempts to take short cuts to success.

His lies tangle with the lies of others, his pride encourages him to inflate himself and blinds him from the truths. His inexperience couples with his wish to succeed; he seduces himself into believing what he wants to believe (aided by Alicia, a young and recent widow who has ego needs of her own).

Inevitably, Gordie finds himself both caught in, and part of the cause of, a tragedy.

(Note: what a previous reviewer's comments mean -- about LBJ, cowboy songs and Vietnam -- is a mystery to me, for none of those things are in this book)

This story is one that is not just good to read, but causes you to reflect for a long time after finishing.

About halfway through The Obituary Writer, the main character's mother tells him: "I hated to lie, but I had to tell her something." That "saying something"-those stories with which we invent ourselves-is the organizing trope of Porter Shreve's first novel.

In 216 lean pages, we meet Gordon Hatch, an ambitious-to-a-fault aspiring journalist ca. 1989, paying his dues as an obituary writer for a St. Louis newspaper. We watch as he falls in love with the mysterious Alicia, who, like Gordon, is trying to find her place in the world. We watch as he botches another relationship, and we watch him finally get tangled in his own web of white lies. And we want badly for him to succeed.

Mr. Shreve handles his subject seriously, but with a light touch that seems almost self-effacing, as if perhaps he sees a bit of himself in his naïve twenty-something narrator. All of us can find some part of ourselves in this character, in over his head in situations he cannot fully grasp. Perhaps we all have watched helplessly while it seemed that control over our lives was wrested from our hands. Our ability and desire to empathize with Gordon and his desire to have "arrived" already, that makes it so much fun to be with him.

Ultimately, The Obituary Writer is a mystery involving the events surrounding the death of Alicia's husband, Arthur. Her story unravels as does the Eastern Bloc countries featured in the background as a constant reminder of the way people construct Iron Curtains, as it were, just as nations do. As Gordon first begins having doubts about Alicia, the Berlin Wall falls, reminding us that it is necessary eventually to remove those artificial boundaries (such as status) we construct around ourselves. As with any good mystery, The Obituary Writer makes sense of its twists and turns as it goes along. It is to Porter's credit that, as with real life, things remain tangled enough at the end that the novel stays with us after we have finished.

This is an author to keep your eye on.

Other reader reviews here say stuff like "quick easy read" or "good for a vacation." What's up with that? Anyone who thinks The Obituary Writer is a book you sit down and read once and that's it, is not reading so well. Sometimes reading takes a little work, especially when it comes to restraint and subtlety. (But then, I don't believe that readers should be lazy.)

Here's a thought: you don't have to write a spew-all non-edited-Zadie Smith type-Rushdie-knockoff to have a full and deep book.

I read The Obituary Writer a couple of months ago and it's still in my mind, especially Gordie Hatch the main character and also that ending! (Hey, a couple people gave away the ending in their reader reviews. That's not cool!!) In an intriguing way, the smoothness of this book is a challenge because it's deceptive. Because the events and characters sure are not quick/easy to read/ smooth.

I think this book deserves some major props!

I don't know what that reader reviewer is talking about re: a disappointing ending. Let me tell you, this ending does not disappoint! It's smart, surprising at first until you realize that it's also inevitable-- what a combination. But I don't want to give anything away. I gotta confess, my friend and I went to see Porter Shreve read at a bookstore in DC (my friend was the one who introduced me to the book), and, since this is an anonymous forum, can I say that Porter Shreve is a real cutie?! But even so, even if I hadn't found that out (the reading was packed, actually) I would have been happy just to hear him read. Great story, great read. And Gordie, the main character, is the greatest. Not to mention the author himself!

I can't imagine what the Los Angeles reviewer was talking about, though it's nice to see that at least one person reads in that city. Clearly s/he missed the point here (a case of too much sunshine, apparently) -- The Obituary Writer is a beautifully spare and understated book about a naive young narrator's emergence into the world. Because Porter Shreve does not overburden his novel with florid language (it's written in a taut prose appropriate to the journalistic milieu) and because the author does not hammer his reader over the head with a Cliffs Notes guide to exactly what s/he is supposed to be gleaning from the book paragraph by paragraph, page by page, a lazy reader can easily miss the subtlely of this excellent novel.

I don't tend to sound off in free-for-all forums such as this (democracy has its downsides -- see George Bush's lead in the polls) -- but I clicked on to this page to order The Obituary Writer for a friend -- and when I saw that brief, dismissive, two star review from L.A. -- I couldn't help myself.

Anyway, read this book!

Did Alicia do it? That's the question that will be haunting me for a while. The Obituary Writer left me up in the air, and in all honesty, that's the only way this book should have left me. The ending is truly remarkable.

Gordie Hatch is a young obituary writer for a newspaper. He seems to be stuck at his position, and his father being an ace reporter who covered the JFK assasination always seems to be looming in the background. One day, Alicia Whiting calls after her husband's death, claiming that there is a good feature story in the making. Gordie is thrown into Alicia's life, and the twists and turns are plentiful from there.

What I liked most is the several different storylines within the one main plot. The substories are all interesting and they are all tied in quite nicely at the end. There were several points in the book where I thought that I knew what was going to happen next, but the novel never seemed to go the way I was thinking.

Overall this was a really quick read with a very subtle language peppered with humor quite well. I sincerely recommend this book for the mere fact that Gordie Hatch is definately one of the most interesting characters you will read about in a long time. This book will not disappoint.

Gordie Hatch is an obituary writer, a position he sees as the start of a great career in journalism, following in the footsteps of his father. Fortunately or unfortunately, Gordie finds he can't ignore his journalistic curiosity (or his hormones for that matter) when a mystery slowly begins to unravel around him.

Its difficult to stress how wonderful this novel is. It has both humor and heart and left me speechless. Shreve is obviously a talent to watch. His characters were rich and well developed, the suspense subtle, and the end result was powerful. Not to be missed.

This is a nicely conceived and executed story, written with a perfect blend of narrative and dialogue. The first-person narrator, Gordie Hatch, is completely believable as a character, driven to journalistic success by a demanding mother cherishing memories of her dead husband -- himself a newspaper man. There are two simultaneous romantic threads, at least one mystery, and, of course (because it's about an obituary writer), plenty of death, albeit rendered in a mostly detached kind of way. The mystery is what kept me absorbed, and because it involves an attractive widow, it occasionally smacks of old-fashioned (read: tired) crime noir. Even as an over-used convention, however, Shreve makes it work in the context of his story, and I guess that ultimately is why I'd recommend it to others: it's an enjoyable story. One of the several surprise twists at the end rang a little false for me, and the widow's evolution as a character seemed at times fabricated for the sole purpose of arriving at this particular twist. Still, all in all, I'm glad I read it, and I would read more of Shreve's work.

I'm from Belgium, 18 years old and had bought this book for an oral examination in my Englisch classes. I'm sure this little review will contain many linguistic faults, so I hope they don't bother you. I have bougt this book when I had read a review in one of our standard high quality newspapers "De Morgen". That review was very grateful to this book, it considered it as "highly recommended". During the reading I found out Porter Shreve doesn't handle a difficult English. My knowledge of the Englisch language is at a primary level, but I could read it without the use of a dictionary. The Obituary Writer certainly is a very good book. I read many books - normaly in Dutch, my native language - and so I have to say that it isn't really my favourite. It's a good book, with many pleasant passages and an intelligent plot that you'll keep you a while busy, but I have read many much better books than that. Maybe it is to blame to the language barrier... However, I enjoyed reading it and have to confess that I hardly couldn't stop reading. A very good book, but I don't think it will be a bestseller...

I picked up this book on a whim. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It grabs you right away and doesn't let go. There has been some debate over the ending. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first, but the more I think about it, it works. The entire book works. There are fascinating characters and some very honest scenes about being young. Gordie Hatch is a terrific character. I would like to see him again. Mr. Shreve should be proud of his first effort.