Customer Reviews

The Signal

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I continue to be disappointed by Amazon (and professional) reviews that over-rate books. The Signal was a 3.5 star book...nothing wrong with that and not a reason to avoid the novel. The Signal is well-written and I found the portions of the book that were reflective on a failed marriage the most interesting.

I do fault the author for injecting unnecessary, and in my opinion, unrealistic plots into an otherwise good story line.

The basis of the story is that an out-of-luck, down-and-out, divorced rancher has been hired to locate a missing 'drone' aircraft in the outback wild. Strange enough...but he decides to bring along his ex-wife for 'one last annual fishing trip'.

Ignore the fact that we have a rancher searching for a drone, ignore that he decides that he can bring along his ex-wife (who is living with someone else), ignore that he seems to believe that he can search for a drone during the trip without his ex-wife's knowledge, and you have a book that is 95% satisfying, 80% of the time.

Would have been a better book if the 'Signal' was left out of The Signal. A good effort, but not without flaws.

In effect this short novel is a paean to the wild mountains and outdoors, all else is secondary and if ignored really makes it a better book. Mark a troubled man who grew up on a ranch made into one of the guest ranches that have been created to save the failing ranches. Mark resorts to some very shady activities to make money after his father's death. He wants to save his ranch but feels he cannot do what his father did in being a welcoming presence to guests.
The main body deals with a trip into the wild wildness of the mountains with his ex wife, a trip they have taken before. He is also seeking a drone that he has been hired to find and hopefully it will finance the saving of his ranch with the money earned. Not enough is explained, so that plot almost becomes secondary, especially since they also become hunted by some poachers they run across. To have them run from that but also hunted because of the drone is an exercise in irrationality.
The beauty and worth of the story is in the love of the country, the mountains and the outdoors - with descriptions so wonderful and complete you can smell and feel their presence - that makes it a book worth reading.

Ron Carlson proves up to Gertrude Stein's challenge in this fine piece of writing. That it is a compelling story, tempts you to rush through the chapters to know the outcome and final resolution of the relationship between the two main characters. But do not cheat yourself in this read. Dwell in the efficiently pounding prose describing the magnificent mountain country of the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Carlson's eye and wordcraft captures both the grandness of the region and the reverent details of a land celestially conceived and created.

A good tale, extremely well told.

This book has a great setting, the mountains of Wyoming, and an interesting main character, a divorced rancher ("Mack") struggling to stay afloat in a changed Wyoming (where millionaires have bought up many of the ranches to build their own "rustic" mansions). Also, there is a nice, elegaic mood early in the story, when we learn of Mack's background, ranching, the early days of his lost marraige, etc. But, the lucidrous plot ultimately kills this puppy. Mack and his ex-wife reunite for one last camping trip (she now lives with a fancy lawyer), but evil poachers and bad guys selling state secrets, hiding dead bodies, riding around in helicopters and shooting spoil their fun. The author's attempts at spare, meaningful prose, a la Hemingway, falls short in light of the made-for-TV movie action that only a 13 year old boy would enjoy.

I bought this book because my favorite novels are based in the contemporary mountain West. Authors like Jance, Billman, McGuane put me where I want to be in the mountain, deserts and big skies of the mountain time zone. The first part of this book did a nice job doing just that. The forest roads and trails of Montana-Wyoming border are wonderfully described and put the reader in a good place. Carlson also did a nice job of character development of the man and his ex-wife as they go on their last camping trip.
But somewhere around the middle of the book it all fell apart. The author introduces a very "out of place" plot involving a high tech spy device. It was almost jarring how poorly this fit with the mood of the first part of the book. The worst part was the narrative became less and less decipherable as the book neared and hit the climax. I had to re-read passages several times to determine who did what to whom with what.
So nice setting, nice character development -- but the author must have rushed the second half of the book for some reason.

Razor sharp writing and a taut plot told briskly--what's not to like?

Ron Carlson's writing style is half poetry. Like "Five Skies" before it, the rough outdoors is the backdrop. "Five Skies" owned Idaho, "The Signal" gnaws on Wyoming. But "The Signal" has more regular story elements going for it, including the broken relationship between the two main characters, Mack and Yvonne, and Mack's search for something that is sending off a signal deep in the mountains. It's a signal he's been sent to follow, but he keeps the search on the sly from his ex, Yvonne.

Mack is fascinating. He has found it hard to stay on the true and narrow but as we meet him he's trying his best to aim straight. He's looking for a rudder, but can't seem to find precisely how to steer. "Every day since he had walked away from jail had been a lesson in assembling himself, and he did not want to lose that."

Mack and Yvonne hike, camp, fish, eat. The scenes crackle to life. Carlson has the ability to zoom in and zoom out of telling details. His sentences stretch easily, effortlessly. "Then the trail was packed dirt winding down the first western slope, sage and berried-scrub and willows until they entered the trees again at a place they called the Gateway because of the great dead skeleton of a ponderosa standing over the trail, and high in it on a huge branch strung an old withered pair of hiking boots that had hung there through the years."

As much as Mack and Yvonne are alone, of course, they are not. Darkness lurks and there are others in the mountains with other plans, needs and cross-purposes. The ending has elements of a thriller and suspense, but Carlson's writing remains restrained and keen-eyed as Mack struggles to stands up to evil forces inside and out.

A gem.

There's more intense action crammed into Ron Carlson's brief new novel than in many works twice its length. Couple that with two complex and absorbing protagonists and gorgeous writing that pays homage to the natural world, and you have a deeply appealing work that's easy to appreciate on a variety of levels.

For each of the last 10 years, Mack and Vonnie have rendezvoused on September 15th for a few days of camping and fishing at Clark Lake, in the Wind River Range of western Wyoming, where winter edges in even before the arrival of fall. After eight years of marriage, the two have divorced, but they've agreed to reenact this ritual a final time. Mack, the son of a rancher, has fallen on hard times. After his father's death, he has sold off two-thirds of the ranch's acreage and has closed the dude ranch where he met Vonnie as a teenager when she came west in the summertime. Failing as a bookstore owner and computer consultant, Mack has descended into the grim and dangerous job of drug running while battling alcoholism. His impulsive decision to apply an iron pipe to the windshield of Vonnie's boyfriend's car lands him in jail for 20 days, and he is about as close to the bottom as he can get.

Mack and Vonnie's idyll begins calmly enough, as they traverse mountain trails and fish for trout in shimmering lakes, the tensions of their fractured relationship simmering just under the surface. But when they stumble across some elk poachers with ties to Mack's drug work, their trip takes on a decidedly darker and more violent turn. Vonnie injures her leg in the attempt to escape, and after traveling together for a time they decide to split up in the hope of eluding their pursuers.

To complicate matters, Mack's fishing trip isn't entirely for pleasure. A sinister figure named Yarnell, for whom Mack had previously forwarded coded computer messages, has hired him to spot what Yarnell describes as a crashed drone aircraft. Yarnell has provided a GPS-equipped BlackBerry to help Mack spot the downed craft. His reward is $10,000 if he brings back the drone's mysterious cargo intact and $5,000 simply for locating the plane. But when Mack, in the midst of his escape, finally finds it, he makes a frightening discovery that thrusts him even deeper into danger.

Carlson doesn't overplay the cat-and-mouse game as Mack and Vonnie flee on foot down the mountain with several ruthless and determined men on horseback and in helicopters on their heels. Yet there are enough hairsbreadth escapes and a powerful sense of uncertainty about the plot's resolution to propel the story forward to its intense conclusion.

Inseparable from the novel's tightly-constructed plot is Carlson's deep engagement with the natural environment, the "wild rough top of the world" where the story unfolds. On almost every page, it seems, there's a fresh, closely observed detail. From the "sound like a river rock walking down a stream bottom" to the sky he describes as a "gray pillowed gridlock," or the chilly dawn that offers "no heat in the planks of sunlight," Carlson's grasp of metaphor is sure and impressive in the vivid images he consistently summons. That control isn't limited to mere abstract description of the ravishing natural phenomena that form the story's setting. He firmly grounds his characters in that starkly beautiful world. Describing how Mack experiences an approaching twilight, Carlson observes, "The angle of light grew fragile; it made him want to hurry. It had always called to him, and now it hurt. You always felt time as a tangible heartbeat in the mountains. The days were short."

No doubt some readers will hear echoes of Ernest Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy in THE SIGNAL's clean, tightly-controlled prose and its story of the small scale of human travails when played out against the gorgeous but unforgiving natural world. Yet it would be a disservice to Ron Carlson to suggest that this accomplished work is in any way derivative of these masters. In truth, he has created something equally masterful of his own.

--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg

Ron Carlson's The Signal is a terrific novella, a story of a man trying to find his way back to life, to prosperity, to happiness, after his release from a short stay in prison. Mack has arranged a camping trip, the last of a series of annual excursions into the Wyoming wilderness with his ex-wife, Vonnie. Mack's been in jail, participated in some questionable ventures and the trip is not simply one last trip--he's got some hidden motives. Things start to spiral out of control in the narrative, but never in the telling. Carlson is an excellent writer; the writing is spare but the story is rich. Mack and Vonnie are intriguing characters that defy simply stereotyping. Carlson's description of the wilderness is enough to make the most camping-averse reader see the beauty in these excursions. The Signal is a great story and a terrific read. Enjoy!

I loved this book. It really captured the beauty and magical feeling of being in the high country wilderness at the same time that it drew you in to the intimacy and shortcomings of a complicated relationship. Easy read but deep feelings.

Carlson is a fine writer; he does wonderful things with words. Avoids cliches like the plague, you might say. His male characters (cf. "Five Skies") are often both tough and tender - vulnerable after lives that have taken bad turns. Such is the main character, Mack, in this novel about a young man's last annual fishing trip with his now ex-wife.

The plot, however, strains credibility. And that may be because "The Signal" wants too much to be a movie. The romance, the building of suspense, the travelogue setting of lakes, mountains, and forest, and the perilous circumstances that have you racing through the last pages make it a candidate for a Hollywood treatment. Did I say there's a poignant denouement that can easily get tweaked into a full-on happy one for a movie audience?

If all that's OK with you, you may well like this book. Beautifully written and heart-stopping in a lot of ways. Could get you hooked on Carlson, if you aren't already, and that's not a bad thing.