I loved the one-page prologue: The son is on the boat, which is in the water off Veracruz even though we know the bulk of the story probably takes place in northern Michigan. The father's face has been beaten to a pulp. They cut off both of his hands and duct-taped the stubs. He is in extreme pain and wishes very earnestly to die so he can stop the pain. The son pushes him out of the boat, and the father slowly sinks below the surface and drowns.
The protagonist is from a rich family that denuded the Michigan forests and ran mining operations in Northern Michigan. In other words, financial robber barons and ecological criminals. This perplexes our hero greatly, and he decides to research the evil in his family (mostly his grandfather's and great grandfather's actions) I guess as a means to understand it and purge himself of it. Clearly, our hero identifies more with Native Americans and lives that lifestyle, unlike his salacious and out of control father. There are two major plotlines in this story, one being the hero's quest to find out more about his family's history and the other being his amorous adventures with young ladies.
One problem is with all of his female sex partners. None of them are shy and withdrawn or self-conscious about their bodies. And they all seem to approach sex with the same exact attitude and techniques, and that attitude is total abandon. It's as if, during the sex scenes, they are all the same character. It's one failing Harrison has in this novel. He doesn't seem to know how to write female characters. It's as if they were all guys with female genitals.
Another problem is related to something Robert McKee addresses in his book, STORY. I think he calls it the Law of Conservative Response. In McKee's book, he asserts that, when confronted by a dilemma or crisis, people tend to respond with the least amount of effort possible, which of course implies that, as new permutations of the problem arise, the responses develop greater magnitude. In this story, it seems as if the problem stays at the same level and so do his responses. This situation is also alluded to in Donald Maass's book, WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL. In it, Maass talks about that old chestnut, "Raising the Stakes". In other words, the consequences of the protagonist's actions become greater and the results of failure responses more dire as the story continues. And I kind of didn't have that feeling with this story. First of all, what is the great reward if the hero totally researches and understands what his ancestors did? How does that make him feel better or turn him into a better person? Also, what is the negative consequence if he fails in his mission? Not a lot as far as I can see. He won't be appreciably more screwed up than he already is.
That said, let me offer a taste of Harrison's style. You may remember I said that the hero is preoccupied with both sex and religion. Here's a passage from page 48:
I continued on to the tip of Presque Isle then circled around the west side of the peninsula and back toward home, a three-hour walk loaded with sappy feelings about Laurie, the kind of emotional schmaltz that makes country music so sodden. I made a detour to avoid passing the Baptist church what with the odors of the sin of fornication on my skin, not a small item after a year that included baptism, prayer meetings, and my prolonged and devout study of the Bible. I consoled myself by thinking that fooling with girls didn't seem high on Jesus' agenda of the forbidden, and while St. Paul was doubtless a good man he tended toward dreariness. This sort of waffling is typical of young fundamentalists looking for an angle in which they may behave as they wish.
The story is divided, so far, into three sections: the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s. Since I graduated high school in 1959, it's easy for me to get caught up these decades as my own age during these times mirrors the age of the protagonist. Harrison's use of detail from these decades appears to be flawless, and he culls up memories of things that I didn't realize I still had.
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The USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids returns with a tale of two generations of women reconciling family secrets and past regrets. | Learn more
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