The Shadow Year: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Jeffrey Ford (Author)
Key Phrases: The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford, Botch Town (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In Edgar-winner Ford's disappointing sixth novel, the narrator—a nameless boy growing up on suburban Long Island in the mid-1960s—spends what remains of his summer vacation roaming the neighborhood with his older brother, Jim. At home, money is tight, forcing their father to work three jobs while their mother drinks herself to sleep every night. A prowler may be loose on the streets, and the narrator and Jim see a menacing man in a white car lurking near their house and school. When a local boy disappears soon after school starts, the narrator and Jim are sure Mr. White is responsible. They turn to their younger sister, Mary, for help, after she mysteriously moves figurines in the boys' model town, reflecting events before they've occurred. The stage is set for suspense, yet Ford (The Girl in the Glass) deflates it at every opportunity with his unresolved subplots. Instead of building to a thrilling climax, the story peters out and loose ends are either forgotten or tied up too neatly. (Mar.)
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From The Washington Post

Momentum generated by atmosphere and vivid characters carries the reader of Jeffrey Ford's new novel a long way. It's the mid-1960s -- or so one surmises from certain details: LBJ is president, but hippy vibes have yet to waft into the Long Island town where the story is set. That story centers on a family that is classically dysfunctional -- a dad who is rarely available, a mom who drinks herself into nightly stupors, grandparents who step into the breech as best they can -- but that, true to its time, functions fairly well just the same.

The kids cope with adult fecklessness by playing pranks and collaborating on an alternate world: Botch Town, their homemade variation on Plasticville or a Lionel train village. Kept in the family's basement and populated by clay models of neighbors, friends and enemies, Botch Town is a kind of running soap opera produced by the unnamed narrator's older brother, Jim, with occasional and spooky help from their younger sister, Mary. Jim is Botch Town's nominal groundskeeper, but it's Mary -- along with her alter ego, a boy named Mickey -- who can move the residents into positions they turn out to have assumed in real life as well. The narrator himself is a sixth-grade nerd with a notebook, which he intends "to fill . . . with the lives of my neighbors, creating a Botch Town of my own between two covers."

There's a lot to write about: a prowler, the disappearance of a neighbor boy and the death of an old man. A Mister Softee driver has promised a free sundae of monstrous proportions to any kid who collects a whole set of "Softee cards," but he may have removed every copy of one particular card from the distribution pile. A sinister character known as Mr. White seems bent on harming children. After being fired, a dotty school librarian walks around a baseball diamond muttering to himself.

As the novel switches between actual incidents involving these people and changes in the configuration of their effigies in Botch Town, an eerie tension takes hold. The prose deepens one's sense of foreboding. Take this chapter-opening passage, in which Ford unforgettably evokes the season: "The days sank deeper into autumn, rotten to their cores with twilight. The bright warmth of the sun only lasted about as long as we were in school, and then once we were home, an hour later, the world was briefly submerged in a rich honey glow, gilding everything from the barren branches of willows to the old wreck of a Pontiac parked alongside the Hortons' garage. In minutes the tide turned, the sun suddenly a distant star, and in rolled a dim gray wave of neither here nor there that seemed to last a week each day."

Ford has won an Edgar award for mystery writing and been nominated for a Nebula for science fiction, which may reflect an impatience with the restrictions of genre. The Shadow Year takes the shape of a mystery (who is Mr. White, and what is he up to?), but it also has supernatural elements (especially Mary/Mickey's ability to influence actual events by moving around those clay figures in the basement), while at the same time it scrutinizes its pivotal family with almost sociological rigor. It all works, I think, except for one thing: too much contrivance in what eventually happens to Mr. White. This is a common problem in fiction, especially novels on the sensationalistic end of the spectrum. The setup is so pregnant with drama that almost no plausible resolution can do it justice.

In this case, though, the letdown is forgivable because Ford does so many things well. He makes the drunken mother not just another lush (she likes to believe she reads herself to sleep rather than passing out on the sofa each night, and the kids often place an open book on her lap after she nods off). And he gets across that one of the most unsettling things happening to this family is that the kids are beginning to pull apart from one another, that Botch Town will not be a joint project much longer.

Doomed though it may be, Botch Town is one of the most enthralling places I've visited in a long time.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (March 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061231525
• ISBN-13: 978-0061231520
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #186,514 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting and Character Driven, May 10, 2008

By	Mel Odom (Moore, OK USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

THE SHADOW YEAR by Jeffrey Ford stands as one of the most striking pieces of fiction I've read so far this year. It's a coming-of-age novel and a statement on dysfunctional families that partially masks itself as a creepy mystery story. It starts out with a face in the window, a prowler in the neighborhood. The time is the 1960s and the location is Long Island, during a kinder, more gentler time when a family's secrets and failings were kept religiously guarded behind closed doors.

I was blown away by the atmosphere and eye for detail Ford packs into his writing. This was my first book by this author, and I was immediately impressed. He possesses the keen vision of Stephen King and doesn't flinch when it comes to exploring personal issues. I got the feeling that a lot of what's in these pages is biographical, and if it isn't, I'd be willing to bet Ford knew a family like this.

Almost. Ford presents a normal abnormal family, then leavens the whole mix with a hint of the supernatural. There's a ghost and the strange powers little sister Mary has, and the eerie presence of Mr. White, a diabolical villain.

But when Ford paints the picture of the family so realistically, most readers are going to get sucked right into his world and forgive the author all of his transgressions. I swallowed the supernatural bits without hesitation because the family were exactly like people I'd grown up with. The father is a workaholic holding down three jobs to get the family by, and so he barely spends any time with his wife or kids. The mother is an alcoholic, and though I would have desperately loved to know why she was, sometimes you just have to accept that there's no answer. The grandparents, Nan and Pop, are on hand to help out, but they're limited.

The narrator, who never named himself, has an older brother named Jim who's daring and audacious, and everything a younger brother could ever dream of being. Mary is the little sister and as odd as they come, while possessing a matriarchal power that both boy are in awe of and seek to protect. As all-knowing as Mary is (and she smokes cigarettes too, which is weird but fits in well with the character), she's also an innocent.

I sat enthralled as I turned the pages, captivated first by the mystery and the threat, then by the narrator's school projects (especially his impromptu clay moon on a stick!), his ongoing battle with a teacher, and his views of the family and how they worked for and against each other.

One of the most original things about the novel is Botch Town, a microcosm created by Jim. It's a replication of the neighborhood where they live. As they sort through the mystery of the prowler, they move the individual figures around to simulate the movements of their neighbors. Unfortunately some turn up missing. Mary has the mysterious power of knowing where they are - even when they're dead.

The threat of Mr. White grows on every page. The kids hunt him through the neighborhood, but he quickly figures out who they are as well and the chase swaps ends. Ford does a lot with the narrator's daily travails as well, putting him in just as much peril from bullies as the prowler/murderer.

I enjoyed this book immensely, but I wanted to know more about some of the characters. I suppose that happens when they appear so real on the page, so I don't want to take anything away from the writing. Ford's other books include award-winning fantasy and Edgar-winning mysteries. He's definitely a writer I'm going to read more from.

THE SHADOW YEAR is an excellent novel that doesn't fit within the restraints of conventional fiction. The book marches to the beat of its own drummer, and the cadence will rivet most readers to the pages either through the elegance of the imperfect past or the chilling menace of a killer on the loose with children in harm's way.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Portrayal of Childhood, April 12, 2008

By	George Eliot (Boston, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

Jeffery Ford captures the thin lines between reality, fantasy and fear that separate childhood from the adult world. The narrator's belief that his sister had powers to predict others behavior, which she revealed by moving figures around Botchtown is exactly the type of connection that we fear and crave as children.
Ford also captures the unique perspective that children hold of adults in their lives, each description of an adult by the narrator, a boy, was right on the mark.
I read most of the book in one sitting. It drew me into its world and was was anxious to find out how it ended. The ending as other reviews noted was not equal to the rest of the book. But the book is more than worth it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ford's Latest, April 7, 2008

By	Daniel Gallagher - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've read all of Ford's novels and many of his short stories - including the short story that was the basis for The Shadow Year. This novel is his most interesting. It tells a story that isn't centered around what I think of as Ford's specialty, "The Perfect Fool" - malevolent practitioners of physionomy, eugenics or other quackery. Instead this novel puts us in the shoes of three children, through whom we view their adventure and world with a child's mix of clear eyes and whimsy. The novel manages to be sensitive and moving as well as hilarious.

I was also surprised at the memories the story evoked. In the relentless nostalgia of our society where there is no saying or memorable line that hasn't been used for a movie title, Ford's narrative brought back images I hadn't thought of in years.

After I finished, I wondered if I read the same book reviewed by Publisher's Weekly.