Customer Reviews

Root of All Evil, The

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A great book which contains an element not common in a lot of todays reading..the author has "lived" these moments..not researched them..and has woven this into a great story. Once you get past the character building in the beginning it hunkers down and the real flavors come out..including thought provoking elements involving man and how he defines himself in the universe (you know those we have in the quiet moments). The author does an excellent job defining "charm", something alien to the roaring masses, but certainly an aspect we should preserve....the conclusion pulls it all together (much beter than that other book..11:30 in the garden)..read it!

Being a "nawthener" all my life, I found this book to be an out of body experience into the core of the real, mystical south. I highly recommend it to any other curious readers, whether you plan a visit to Charleston or not! The blend of mysticism, history and murder in "Root" kept me glued to the pages. I am looking forward to reading David Farrow's next book--and I'm hoping he makes it a continuation of this one in some way, keeping the spirit of Charleston past and present coming to life, in far more than a strictly geographic way.I could not put this book down. I started reading it while on vacation in Charleston and continued it during a visit to Savannah. Because the book was so far superior to "THE BOOK" (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), my mind was still in Charleston though I was surrounded by Savannah's "Midnight" tours, posters, and paraphenalia.Luckily, my husband and I had the unique pleasure of meeting David Farrow on a recent trip to Charleston. The city is charming and lovely, but it didn't come alive until we experienced its old haunts through the eyes of someone who has lived on shrimp, grits, and voodoo. Bravo, David! Do it again!

Having spent all his life living in Charleston and the last half unfolding the historic city for tourists, David Farrow writes with an undiluted appreciation for his home.

But the real value beyond the homespun comraderie and irreverent rich Southern society-speak of the main characters is Farrow's imagination. Voodoo in the South Carolina lowcountry mixed with quantum physics and the search for God is not the standard fare coming out of the pastoral stable of regional writers. Farrow takes chances. He challenges the reader to find a new way through the highly tread traditions of Southern Gothic. A genre needy of a modern take on things.

Farrow suffers a little from poor editing, his enthusiasm sometimes getting the better of him. But the author's gift is that he never writes in an all-knowing omniscient voice merely revealing events. The central character--and Farrow's alter-ego--come across as an evolving soul searching out his place in an old society at odds with a modern world. The central conflict is personal, complemented beautifully by the architecture, mores and landscape of a very physical and romantic setting.

The Root of all Evil is not just a good read for anyone who ever visited or is planning on visiting Charleston. The book is a mental and physical romp through one of the world's most charming cities. One that has many layers and one that David knows well.

I look forward to his next effort.

Aside from a page-turning good story, Mr. Farrow brings to life the Charleston that exists behind the tinsel and tourism. This is the real Charleston, with all of its beauty and blemishes. It's the world of old families and tradition that's quickly being lost. If you love what you see in Charleston, read this book and get a sense of what you otherwise would never see.

I actually used to know the author twenty years ago while spending a summer in Charleston, during an internship with the Historic Charleston Foundation back in my college years...his character and personality really come out in this novel.

In fact, he once told me of several supernatural incidents involving voodoo that he believed really happened. In other words, he really believed in the possibility of the sorts of things that took place in the book. He actually comes from among the First Families there 'South of Broad Street'.

I'm very proud of him and recommend his book! :) It really flows.

Late to the dance, I bought this book in 1997 while in Charleston at a book signing held by the author in The Charleston Place Hotel. David signed the book that I would never see Charleston in the same way after reading his terrific story and he was correct! I continue to visit Charleston every year at least once and read the book each October because it fits that season so well. I remain hopeful that a second novel is being considered, perhaps a continuation of the story, The Root of All Evil. Buy it.

David Farrow brings together a group of characters I felt I might have grown up with, mixes in a little well-crafted supernatural element and puts it all together in the Charleston setting he obviously knows and loves. His intelligent musings on religion are an added and relevant bonus to a very enjoyable tale.

Having vacationed in and around Charleston, SC very often, I was looking forward to reading a good mystery novel set in this beautiful southern city. Unfortunately, I still am.

David Farrow's "The Root of All Evil" is full of nice little desciptions of life in Charleston society. But the plot and the plodding nature of the writing get in the way. Characters are not gradually revealed through mannerisms and dialogue. Rather, they are summed up in two paragraph biographies (including innane vignettes from their childhood) when they are introduced, a habit Farrow must have picked up writing magazine articles. The writing is so distractingly painful that it is difficult to do more than skim the pages. The dialogue is stilted, and bogs down with dialect whenever a black character speaks.

It's unfortunate, because Farrow has much to tell about Charleston, and I enjoyed that painted what life is like in Charlestonian closed, old-world society. This book left me wanting to read Farrow's Charleston: Remembrance of Things Past," and hoping he steers clear of fiction in the future.

After going on David Farrow's ghost tour (which i highly recomend) I was compelled to read his first novel. Besides beautifully telling a story of a fight between good and evil, Mr. Farrow instills the values of the South that so many people have forgotten or are trying to modernize them. If you want a real taste of the South, along with a hair raising story line that is based on actual culutral beilefs and accounts, you MUST read this book. As a proud Southerner, I gladly recommend this to my Yankee counterparts to show that we have let you into our lives but you have not broken our pride. And i invite those who wish to know more about the South, with out the biased, to read as well.

This is a must for anyone interested in Charleston. As a former professor at the College of Charleston, I can attest to its ability to capture a time and place. A worthy first effort from Mr Farrow. I look forward to future works!