Customer Reviews

Souls Raised from the Dead: A Novel

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

 

 

I almost gave up on this book after the first 100 pages. After encountering the overprotective father, the plucky but seriously ill daughter, and the narcissistic, self-indulgent mother who had deserted the family two years earlier, the stars seemed in alignment for an overwrought, maudlin tearjerker. Instead, Doris Betts has given us a finely told, thoughtful story about those things we cling to when disaster befalls, especially about the exercise of faith in the absence of any reason to hope. The writing is often superb, as in this observation about the girl's grandmother: "Sex was more important to men than it had ever been to Tacey. Maybe those old Jewish male prophets valued sex so highly it had attained to them the level of sin; she did not, so it had not." Or this, a description of women waiting for their men in the hospital emergency room: "These women wasted no energy by pacing. None of them touched a magazine. They solidified themselves in the first chairs they had taken some time ago, and waited like stones for something external to make them move." Most characters are well-developed; the plot is only moderately suspenseful, but surprisingly compelling nonetheless. I wished that the author had delved more into the inner life of Frank, the main character, and I thought a few plot turns bordered on the implausible. Nonetheless, Betts has done remarkably well telling a story which initially appears unpromising.

I read a lot and enjoy everything from good junk fiction to the western canon. I have recently started reading Elizabeth Spencer's short stories and pick up Souls Raised from the Dead after hearing Doris Betts read a short passage when receiving a literary award for NC literature (from the North Carolina Literature Review).

This is what I think of as a naturalistic novel. It is a portrait of ordinary people living through a difficult time. It is true that the emotions of some characters (especially Frank -- the father) are not explored in detail, but then Frank's inability to verbally express emotion is a major focus of the book. He loves his daughter and hovers over her. He is depicted as a good man, but cannot emotionally connect with the two women who comfort him except through what we used to call (quaintly) "making love" which is tastefully depicted.

This is not Dostoevsky but it is a venture into the lives of others. I am a North Carolina native and appreciate many of the southern women writers. I preferred this novel to some of those by women who have received far more recognition. I have read and met some of the others (e.g. Jill McCorkle and Lee Smith) and think Souls Raised from the Dead is in the same league as their prose. Betts is not as colorful or as funny as either McCorkle or Smith, but her novel is a realistic view of life and the South.

A wonderful novel that stirs the emotions with characters that stay on your mind. The writing is crisp but what shines the brightest are the complex and REAL characters in the novel. A novel that is sure to move even the most stoic of readers.

Doris Bett's 1994 novel Souls Raised from the Dead is a heartbreakingly sad book. Mary Thompson, age thirteen, lives with her divorced father, both of them having been left by Mary's petty, selfish, but very beautiful mother. Mary develops chronic kidney failure, and her slow demise is wrenching to both the book's characters and this reader. One realizes just how precious children are, and just how unfair life can be (or, to this lucky reader, how fortunate he and his family have been). As I read this novel in the evenings, I found myself going to check on my sleeping daughters, to make sure they were breathing soundly and snug under their covers. The true villain in this book is Mary's mother, who conceivably could have donated a kidney (Mary's father has only one sound kidney), but is too wrapped up in herself and astoundingly selfish to even see the need, let alone its urgency. Despite its highly emotional theme, Betts is not a sentimental writer. I appreciate this. She simply tells her story, and trusts its strength to hold and move the reader. This novel may hit too close to home for some parents; I do recommend it for adolescent readers.

I read a book every week or so and Souls Raised From the Dead was a total waste of my time. There is nothing to like about any of the characters. I have had a son die from cancer and know what it is like to lose a child to illness. In the case of the dying daughter in the novel, I really didn't care and neither did anybody else. Everybody seems a bit mean spirited, busy with their sex-lives or drinking and they seem to be a reflection of the author, Doris Betts who acts like a babe in the woods with an ax to grind with religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. She even makes a point to attack the church in her "Note About The Type" where she informs the reader that the Catholic Church even censored the use of the typeset adapted for use in printing the book. I am easily moved by authors when I can care for their characters. I will never read another book by this professor turned inquisitor.

I really liked this book. It was not too sentimental and I thought the characters were very real. It hut my heart and made me angry whenever Mary Grace and her mother were together. I just didn't understand her but the writing was good enough that I finished the book and wanted more. Just a really touching story....

While my tears flowed in several places throughout Souls Raised from the Dead, I found myself dry-eyed and skeptical at the end. Betts' novel of a girl on the cusp of adolescence diagnosed with kidney disease and surrounded by a myriad of colorful adult figures could have been so much more than the plot-driven surface treatment she gave the characters. Mary Grace Thompson suffers from kidney failure, but Betts never tells the reader what that involves. Only as the reader turns the pages do the stages of dietary restrictions, dialysis, increased medications, and hope for a donor become clear as the next steps. Betts' implied medical horror is only a shadow compared to the black and white truth of medical reality. I would have been happier knowing the clinical details; however, the in's and out's of kidney failure were not the focus of this book. And therein lies my biggest disappointment with Souls Raised from the Dead. The book's focus was the cliched characters and their relationships--stoic father and prickly, loving, daughter; selfish irresponsible ex-wife and two current girl-friends with different needs and wants; self-righteous grandparents and "white trash" grandparents who have a good heart where Mary is concerned. Betts did not delve into their personalities enough to make me emphathize with them. The dialogue was stilted, though some of the one-sentence descriptions were poigniant. Betts describes Mary Thompson's thoughts through the stages of her illness with clarity, though Betts never shows how Mary's feelings of isolation, denial and detachedness affect her relationships with her father or grandparents. Betts also delved into the character of Tacey Thompson, Mary's paternal grandmother, and her struggle with a faith contradicted by reality. Initially, I was prepared for a wrenching story, but by the end of the book, I was annoyed with the predictable plot and could easily visualize this as a made-for-TV movie.