Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Moving on to Carolyn Parkhurst

Carolyn Parkhurst has a new book out, called The Nobodies Album. I read a review in the New York Times. I was interested in it because the main character is a writer working on getting her next novel published and I really enjoy novels about writing and publishing (for example, Olivia Goldsmith’s The Bestseller—and please recommend others to me if you know of them!). I requested the book from my local library (more on how much I love my local library at another time) but they don’t have it yet, so I decided I’d request her two earlier novels (as long as I’m attacking the canon of Ann Patchett and Jonathan Carroll I might as well try Parkhurst too!).

Today I started reading The Dogs of Babel. I know absolutely nothing about it— except the author’s name! – and I didn’t try to learn anything, just opened to page one and started to read.

I’m not a fan of back cover copy or flap copy – and I’ve certainly written my share of both in my career! The goal of back cover and flap copy is to catch the interest of someone who might happen to pick the book up knowing nothing about it – to capture their interest in the few fleeting moments they turn their attention to this book when they come across it in a store. As such, this copy, like a movie preview, needs to be sparky and compelling, needs to provide some quick info that will make the browser want more. As such, again like the movie trailer, it tends to give away too much. So I don’t read it. I sometimes read it after I’ve finished the book! Of course this sometimes causes challenges for me – like the novel I read not too long ago, in which I spent the whole time I was reading it looking for clues to figure out what city it took place in, and what decade it was, because both were unnamed in the book. I eventually did figure it out, and was proud of this – then I finished the book and glanced at the back cover where it quite plainly said “in Brooklyn in the 1970s.” Ah, well.

So I’m reading The Dogs of Babel with no clue what to expect. In the very first paragraph, the narrator’s wife dies by falling out of an apple tree. The police come and rule it a suicide. But then, a page later, the narrator mentions that in the days after her funeral he starts to find things that make he him think the day his wife died was not an ordinary day. Am I about to read a murder mystery? The book’s cover has a picture of a mask on it – could be a mystery. Well, I’ll find out (but not by reading the flap copy!)

One other thing before I delve further into the book. I’d like to present to you here a few parts of sentences from said the paragraph of the book:

“. . . it was a weekday afternoon, and none of our neighbors were at home. . . None of them were working in their yards…”

Ok, am I the only one who notices? Does anyone care anymore? None were? How about none was, as in “not one of them was”? Why can’t anyone be grammatically correct anymore and why doesn’t anyone care? Lynne Truss, where are you when I need you (see Eats, Shoots & Leaves if you don’t know what I’m talking about)?!
(posted 9/29 - actually written 6/21)

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