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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It REALLY is a surprise ending!, November 22, 2001
This review is from: White Crosses (Paperback)
I picked this book up purely based on the interesting cover photograph and type-set. Basic plot: small town sheriff comes across an accident involving his small town's elementary school principal and a young girl fresh out of high school; he creates a story to protect both victims' reputations that ends up creating unexpected results. Although I thought Watson's highly descriptive prose was impressive, the book did drag at times as Sheriff Jack Nevelsen's thoughts went off onto seemingly unrelated tangents. I hadn't read any previous reviews and wasn't expecting the surprise finale. I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 3 purely because of the creative ending.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Larry Watson will get there, eventually. Still a good read., April 1, 2004
This review is from: White Crosses (Paperback)
Larry Watson could be one of the best American writers alive today. I say could be. He's easily one of the most accessible authors when it comes to fiction about the western US. And he comes up with intriguing stories that really make you want to open the book to find out what happens. But Watson has a problem with characters, particularly women. (Perhaps he should hook up with Robert Hellenga who wrote "The Sixteen Pleasures" to get an idea of how to present a female character.) In "Laura" Watson depicts multiple negative female stereotypes. In "Justice" and "Orchard" the females are rather bland. Of the five Watson books I've read I'd say that "Montana 1948" is by far his best by a million miles. It's short, to the point, and packs a wallop. Perhaps that's because he focused on the pov of a young boy. Because of the set up we give him allowances. We don't expect a boy to know and understand the feelings and motivations of adults, especially women. So it works. Superbly in fact. In "White Crosses" we have yet another intriguing story. Why was the principal in the car with the young girl? You open the book and you want to find out more. "Crosses" is a good read. And I disagree with those who say the character asides are besides the point. Watson is not some Dean Koontz who wants us just to care about the plot. He wants us to get into the hearts and minds of his characters. To do that we need their thoughts and memories. But still, as pointed out by a female reviewer here, Watson just can't handle those female characters. They're either beautiful or ugly. They're inexplicable. They're unaccessable. They're just not human. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the ending. You'll say aloud "No!" when you finish the tale. It's frustrating and tragic. Does it work? Yes, I think it does. Too often we get stuck on that unrealistic merry-go-round of happy endings. We forget reality, we forget that life is messy. Here, Watson reminds us that things don't always work out as planned. Overall, a good book that could have been great. But I'm crossing my fingers for Larry Watson. Someday he'll get both the story and the female characters right. Someday he'll give us a female character with all those "annoying" asides with real thoughts and memories.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Poetic attempt...but irritating for small literary gaffs, June 20, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: White Crosses (Paperback)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: why do some writers insist on using characters' full names again and again in the same paragraph/on the same page? When two people are having a private conversation that concerns only those two people...it is not necessary to repeat their full names again and again. One need write only , "she said," not "Vivian Bauer said..." once we KNOW it's Vivian who is speaking. It's a sort of Hemingway-ish thing to do, and it was one of the more mannered, contrived aspects of the great writer's work, too. The sheriff was exasperating in his willingness to do anything to anyone to support an outright lie. Much of this did not make sense to me. I didn't feel his motivation was supported...I didn't feel I knew the town all that well to make the judgement that it was too fragile and insulated to be able to accept what in my mind was not that huge a scandal. I mean, the dead girl was eighteen, no longer really a child, though the sheriff referred to her that way. And the principal, Leo Bauer, was too removed for the reader to feel what he was truly all about. And the wife, Vivian, was a sort of male ideal of womanhood...she just never seemed very real to me...an alabaster statue. It did not seem plausible to me that Jack would leave his beloved child Angela to take up with her. Also, I didn't really get a handle on his relationship with his own wife, ony that he hadn't really "seen" her for years. But why? Why had they drifted apart? And whose fault was it, mostly? Jack's or Norah's? Frankly, I didn't think the novel was very complimentary to women. They were either ugly or ideally beautiful; as a woman, I didn't identify with any of them. Still, it was a poetic attempt. There were some lovely
descriptions of the countryside. And I think it would make
a dynamite movie, with someone like Will Patton in the lead. If this writer overcomes his stilted literary stylization, he could turn out a masterpiece like "Affliction" by Russell Banks, another novel about a small-town cop gone "bad." He needs to "write loose" - let go and let the wind take him, instead of trying to control the words. He's already good, but he could be better. This review is meant to encourage. I think Watson has a great book in him. Let go and let God, Larry...
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