Customer Reviews

Outside Valentine: A Novel

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In 1957, Charlie Starkweather and his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate went on a killing rampage, making the dark days of a brutally cold winter even darker. For days, they gripped the Midwest with a tangible fear. Charlie claimed that everything he did was for Caril Ann. She claimed that she did nothing wrong. Whatever their motives, their actions took the lives of many, changed many more, and touched almost everyone across the country in one way or another.

OUTSIDE VALENTINE is a tale written from three very disparate perspectives. Related at different points in time, the whole awful story of the bloody trail left in Starkweather's wake takes on dimension. It could scarcely be told in a better way. Liza Ward gives us a feel for the survivors' deepest thoughts, Caril Ann's insistent self-acquittal, and the appalling thrill that we get when we hear of such a shocking horror, deftly illustrating how we allow ourselves to lionize the monsters capable of unthinkably horrific crimes.

Caril Ann was 14 when Charlie found her in his tree house. That day sealed the fate of nearly a dozen people, whose only fault was being in the wrong place when she and Starkweather passed into their lives. The couple indulged their hatred, leaving a path of death and broken futures. A quote attributed to Charlie says it all: "The more I look at people, the more I hate them."

Five years after the murders, Puggy, a teenaged girl abandoned by her mother, finds herself obsessing over the story of Charlie and Caril Ann. She has built the two lovers into legendary figures in her mind. Secretly, she wishes for someone to love her the way Charlie loved Caril Ann. In a sense, she admires them --- until the reality of their mindless cruelty sinks in. One of Puggy's schoolmates lives next door to Lowell Bowman, who was away at boarding school when Starkweather and Fugate broke into the family home and killed his mom, dad, maid and dog. Puggy is transfixed by this brooding young man, claiming that she loves him even before she meets him. It becomes her goal to win his heart and hear the gruesome story of his parents' last hours.

Nineteen years further on, Lowell is still struggling to regain a normal life. He has pushed his wife away and never got close to his children, retreating to the easy comfort of liquor. He cares --- there is no doubt about that. He wants to reach out, but he fears Starkweather and Fugate destroyed a part of him, along with his family. And he wonders if he can ever get it back.

The author has a personal investment in this story. She lost her grandparents to the murderous pair nearly half a century ago. It is that very closeness to the crimes that gives Liza Ward's writing such power and poignancy. At one point, Caril Ann muses, "When I am half asleep and everything is dark, ghosts rise out of the prairie and swim across my eyes. The girl crawls up from the storm cellar with glass in her knee." It almost sounds like she has regrets. If Ward can make us care for Caril Ann, even just a little, imagine the humanity she can breathe into the victims. Two thumbs up for OUTSIDE VALENTINE.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

This uniquely absorbing debut novel richochets through generations revealing the engrossing tale of the Starkweather murders; our country's first teenage serial killers. Even true crime buffs will find this a must read as the author is the granddaughter of two of the victims. Ward has the haunting perspective that can only be had through a lifetime of introspection trying to understand the incomprehensible. Her fine pitch and uncanny insight leave the reader waiting for more. Every character in this novel stands on its own but together they are a rich reveal of how actions can reverberate through the ages; leaving a wake of despair, destruction and, ultimately, redemption. Excellent.

I am fascinated by the author's technique of using three voices to tell this story, and how they all come together by the end of the book. Each voice evokes the flavor of his or her era. A very talented author has shared a book with us. I hope she will share more.

I do have one bit of advice to you, if you should read this wonderful book.....In the first few chapters, take note of the years....this is a story told by three people, in different times. Get to know them.


Thanks, Liza Ward, for your book.

In Ward's first novel, she shows a masterful ability to tell three overlapping stories with three distinct voices. I was impressed by the different feeling and touch expressed by all three characters. Word on the street is that she's hard at work on her next novel. Be excited.

Ward's storytelling is something like Alice Hoffman's, with darker moments out of Joyce Carol Oates. There are long internal passages as characters think, feel, and wonder restlessly, yearning for love, attention, someone - anyone - to care about them and lift the veil of loneliness surrounding them. When they talk to each other, they seldom say what they really mean. Their world is frozen like the deep Nebraska winter of 1958, in which the Starkweather murders take place.

The theme of loneliness, emotional abandonment, and the obsessive desire for love are played out in several story lines, all reflections of young Caril Ann Fugate's fatal attraction to the boy with a gun who romances her and draws her along in his bloody wake. Readers who find her parts of the novel compelling (and they are), will discover that Ward devotes far more of the book to less dramatic characters and situations, which are interesting only as they parallel or intersect with the account of Caril Ann and Charlie. Crime fiction fans will find these stretches of the novel slow going.

Curiously, Ward reimagines the Starkweather-Fugate story - as if the actual events lack a narrative integrity of their own. The two young people were eventually arrested not "outside Valentine" but in Douglas, Wyoming, after fleeing across the entire length of Nebraska. Readers interested in the story of that flight will find instead a more reflective and thoughtful study of the human heart.

Outside Valentine was the first book read in my book club and it is still the hands-down favorite. First time novelist Liza Ward manages to weave 3 very disparate narrative voices together to create a tapestry of a family tradgedy and how it continued to effect people and places. The writing is chilling, luminous, and succinct. That the material is based on real events that happened in the novelist's life adds a deeper layer of intensity to an already riveting novel. I can't wait for her next work! Bravo!

Outside Valentine is an extraordinary book; heartbreaking yet affirming of life. Based on the actual events of a murderous crime spree in rural Nebraska in the Fifties, the novel explores the lingering effects on people caught in the aftermath of such tradgedy. Ultimately, life regains a foothold. I highly recommended the book and give it five stars.

This book is incredible, riveting - I couldn't put it down! Such a wonderful novel loosely based on a true story of two murderers on the run. (think of the movie "Natural Born Killers" only with less murders)I love how the book is from three different points of view so that you can not only see how the murderers are feeling but also how their murders affect the lives of other people. Extremely well written, this book will captivate anyone. You won't forget it.

I read this book in a day. I just could not stop reading it. Liza Ward has me hooked. I can't wait to read whatever she has out next.

I kind of stumbled upon this book. I had never heard of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. Way before my time I guess. From the first page I knew I would enjoy this story. What most impressed me is the depth of the characters. I found myself holding my breath at times. I was so caught up in this story. A very sad but beautifully told story. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

Thank you, Liza Ward, for a compelling novel about an event that occurred in a gentler time and place. I grew up in Omaha during the "reign" of Charlie Starkweather, and my friends and I were fascinated and terrified by something so previously foreign to us.

This novel is told in three separate voices, and is extremely well-written. Each of the voices is believable, and never lets us forget that they are people in their teens with the motivation of that age group.

I look forward to reading Ms. Ward's next novel - this is a very talented writer.