Customer Reviews

Singing Boy: A Novel

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Though I am an avid reader for the entertainment I rarely find a book that I absolutely cannot put down. As I read while flying I had to glance around to see how many people saw the tears well in my eyes again and again. This book is written with an amazing amount of compassion for it's characters. It is a story that will make you stop and think about your life and how important things really are. Don't miss the opportunity to read one of the best books I have read in a long time. I would give it ten stars if I could.

As his debut novel, The Music Room (1990), garnered both critical and popular acclaim, Dennis McFarland soon found himself named among America's premier wordsmiths. His next two novels, most notably School For The Blind (1994), ensured his standing.

Readers anticipate this author's supple, compelling prose. Such expectations are fulfilled with Singing Boy, a poignant exposition of grief in which Mr. McFarland again touches upon his recurring themes of death, forgiveness, and the mercy of time.

Following a dinner at which he has been honored, Malcolm Vaughn, with his wife, Sarah, and Harry, their eight-year-old son, is driving home through a quiet Massachusetts night. Malcolm's attention is caught by an old Corvair blocking their passage through an intersection. When he goes to investigate, he is shot and killed by the Corvair's driver, a stranger. Harry watches as his father is slain, and Sarah cradles her husband as he bleeds to death on the street.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Sarah calls Deckard Jones, a black Vietnam war veteran, who is Malcolm's best friend. Deck, as he is called, is approaching fifty. He has spent time in a detox unit, is haunted by the horrors of wartime carnage, and has recently lost his girlfriend. His life, it seems, is going fast but headed nowhere.

"Spontaneous murder," according to the police, is the classification for Malcolm's death. However, this is not the story of a crime but a powerful tale of how three bereaved souls respond to tragedy. Each retreats in a different way, unable to contemplate let alone cope with their shock and grief.

Sarah, a chemical engineer, is immobilized, incapable of decision making, unable to offer Harry parental affirmation, even a modicum of guidance.

Of Sarah Mr. McFarland writes, "No one will understand that her grief is what she has left of him, and if she were to lose that, she would have nothing at all."

Young Harry conceals his trauma behind a mask of normalcy - he doesn't cry, he speaks politely when spoken to, reiterating that he is fine.

In analyzing Harry's behavior, Deckard concludes, "There was something too smooth about it, too business-as-usual, too no-problem."

Confronted with a grieving Sarah whom he is trying to nudge in a "back-to-normal direction" and a child who seems so extremely normal that it's worrisome, Deckard assumes the role of protector, repressing his mourning for a friend's death until personal crises threaten to pull him under.

Related with truthfulness and compassion the struggles of three people become a reflection of our own periods of loss. Many can relate to the words Harry utters as an adult: he remembers the summer of his father's death as a time when "he'd learned the word `inconsolable,' and what a deep deep well of a word it was."

Mr. McFarland has said that in this story he wanted to honor Sarah's "right to be inconsolable, her right for claiming as much time for grieving as she needed......I wanted to show that it's impossible to shape and pace grief through an effort of will."

He has accomplished this with with grace and beauty. For this we are grateful.

I'm reading this book and thinking already of the review I am going to write. That's not a good sign I wouldn't think. Here's the problem I read the inside jacket and the whole concept of the story drew me amd I wanted to get to know these characters and even care about them. Now I am almost finished(less than 20 pages) and I still have a lot of questions about Sarah, Deckard and Harry. The author gives you perspective from Deckard and Sarah, but I wonder what it would have been like to get inside little Harry's mind and hear from him. I really don't want to give the idea that this is a bad book but it left me wanting to know the real story and to dig a little deeper.
Finally, I must say I'm still mad that I read a reviewer on Amazon that decided to reveal the ending for all who read his or her review. Thumbs down to you!

In the Boston area, Malcolm and Sarah Vaughn accompanied by their second grade son Harry were driving home from dinner when the Corvair in front of them sat at the green light, not once but twice. Malcolm went to see if the driver was okay, but was shot and killed for his Good Samaritan efforts. Harry and Sarah watch their beloved father and husband die in front of their shocked eyes.

The aftermath of the random act of violence stuns Sarah and Harry. At the hospital Sarah calls Malcolm's best friend Deckard Jones, who cannot cope any better than the two survivors. Sarah finds herself increasingly alone, as she cannot hide her grief in her work as a chemical engineering professor. Harry suffers nightmares that haunt him during the day hiding it with apathy and withdrawal while crying and wetting his bed at night. Deck returns to Nam where he seen death and suicide as the norm. The near future for this trio is at best bleak, helpless, and unrelenting, as they must cope with tragedy by themselves.

As he did with THE MUSIC ROOM, Dennis McFarland provides his audience with an angst-filled tale of what emotionally and psychologically happens to the survivors. The tragedy occurs in the first chapter with the main story line centering on how each individual copes (or in many cases, not deal with) the sudden death of a loved one. Although a bit too melodramatic at times as secondary players also suffer and react in various ways to Malcolm's murder, Mr. McFarland has written a superb psychological thriller that emphasizes the feelings not the action.

Harriet Klausner

I liked this book, however I'm usually not at a loss for what to say about a novel, and this one has me slightly stumped. The writing is excellent, and there were many times I stopped and re-read a sentence for no reason other than it was so perfect. It really is an examination of grief, and the various ways individuals cope(or do not cope with it.) As another reviewer stated I would have liked more insight into the mind of the son,
and his feelings about the disintigration of his family. I found this novel to be less of a "story" per se, and more like a vignette of a time in the lives of three people. It was satisfying but for some strange reason I can't quite put my finger on, this book did not stay with me once I finished it. Perhaps like it's subject matter the memory fades with the passage of time.

I'd wanted to read "Singing Boy" for the past three years. Trouble is, author Dennis McFarland's novel is shelved at my public library, right next to Ian McEwan's novels. So after reading the whole, more well-known, Ian McEwan library, I finally got around to McFarland's Singing Boy.

This is a novel about relationships which form during a grieving period. A widow and her son witnessed a violent crime which killed the husband/father, the rest of the novel is about how they come to terms with this.

The father's best friend was Deckard, who is black. Will white-bread Sarah and black best friend have a romantic relationship?

Romance junkies will be very disappointed.

(SPOILERS)

There is no romance in this novel. Even the Police Officer who quits the case in order to romance the widow, is rejected because Sarah is too filled with grief to get involved with anyone.

There's not much action, suspense, or plot twists either. The crime is never solved. But, that's ok because the whole theme of the book is about looking for closure that's actually available to you, not grasping at what isn't. In that sense, this novel really works as a sort of---grief manual, more than any other, even non-fiction grief books I've read. Sarah, the widow, choose not to undergo traditional mental health/ grief therapy. Sarah rejects that and even loses her temper with a psychiatrist over the telephone. Again, this novel really highlights alternate forms of grieving over death, and gives very realistic detail about what it's like for an 8-year-old son to lose his father.

I would have liked a stronger setting, especially since mother, Sarah, and son, Harry, seek solice in nature, the ocean etc... We never really find out what ocean that is...I'm assuming it's the Eastern seaboard. Very vague in terms of setting.

But, I can't quibble with the very intimately drawn characterizations that are detailed, in depth, or the expressive, poignant writing.

Another wonderful book by Mcfarland. Singing Boy is perhaps his most moving. The writing is wonderful, the story moving and the characters are finely drawn. I reccomend this book to people who really enjoy good writing.

I loved this book by Dennis McFarland. I was thoroughly engaged with Sarah, Deckard, and Harry. Finally, stream of consciousness made readable. And Deckard's experience--his feelings in relation to memory, memory loss, moving through days and relationships--had me page for page laughing aloud. Bravo to Mr. McFarland.

Singing Boy is another wonderful book by Mcfarland it is perhaps his most heartfelt. The writing is wonderful, the story moving and the characters are finely drawn. I recomend this book to people who enjoy good writing.

The complexities of grief are individual to their owners. McFarland does a good job examining each character's response to a life-shattering experience. The lesson of this book is that no two people are alike and therefore do not react alike but that eventually you find your way back on your own terms.