Blogger Evil Editor said...I gave ample reminders. If no one remembers to show up, I'm not to blame. Get it? Blame?
Sylvia said...Hello! and that wasn't funny. (ok, maybe a little bit) This is going to sound really snobby but: I hated the dialogue without quotations. I wouldn't have finished it if it wasn't a book chat, based on style alone.
Evil Editor said...I wouldn't call it snobbish to be annoyed by it. Some would call it snobbish not to use them. As it happens, one of my favorite book chat books, Man in the Dark, by Paul Auster, didn't have quotation marks. I've since bought a few of his other books and some of them don't have them either. Maybe no quotes is the new black in litfic.
Sylvia said...I would have gobbled this up in no time if I didn't have to backtrack to reparse sentences when I got to the end. It meant there was this little snide voice in the back of my head going, Think you're too good for punctuation or what?
Evil Editor said...There were a few places where the lack of quotation marks annoyed me because it wasn't clear who was speaking. But for the most part I got used to it.
Sylvia said...I just couldn't see any benefit to it. Even now, I feel like this could have been a runaway best seller, if you didn't scare people off with what appears at a glance to be a dialogue-free novel marked as "lit fic". And despite that, I liked the story. I loved Patsy. I loved all the characters, actually. Once I got a quarter of the way through, the story started pulling me in and I read it very quickly from there.
Zachary Gole said...I admit, the dialogue without quotation marks bothered me a little too. Not enough to prevent me from enjoying the book, but it was a bit of an annoyance, albeit a very minor one. Maybe there was a reason for it that I didn't get, but it just came across to me as an affectation. Still, like I said, I enjoyed the book; the lack of quotation marks wasn't a big deal for me.
Evil Editor said...It would be interesting to know if Huneven's other two novels have quotation marks. If they do, then she made a conscious choice to leave them out here, and we could ask her why. If she were here. Maybe in her other books she doesn't use periods, either.
Robin B. said...The lack of quotation marks doesn't really bother me - one of my favorite authors, Cormac McCarthy, doesn't use them. But I think it takes a truly special skill to pull it off.
Zachary Gole said...This is the second book I recall reading recently without quotation marks, actually. The first was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The lack of quotation marks bothered me there, too. In fact, I think it bothered me more there, though I'm not sure why; maybe just because it was new to me and having already read that book I was a little more used to them by the time I got to Blame.
Sylvia said...Heh, that's a fair point. It pissed me off when Cormac McCarthy did it too, actually. I really wanted to get past it. I did get past it in both books. And The Road was just plain brilliant, so I didn't feel that same itch of "this could have been better if you hadn't tried to be different" Which is probably a silly sentiment in itself. I don't know, maybe it's a German thing. We haf qvotes for a purpose!
Zachary Gole said...Anyway, on a matter not quotation-mark-related, I kind of wish I hadn't read the dust jacket copy before reading the book, since it gave away a major plot point that comes up near the end of the novel, but oh well... But that's not the author's fault, of course.
Sylvia said...Oh no! I read it on the Kindle so I didn't know anything at all about it going in. I wouldn't have liked to have expectations, I don't think.
Zachary Gole said...(Er... my last comment referred to my previous comment, not Sylvia's; should have just combined those into one comment... sorry...)
Sylvia said...LOL Zachary, it applies perfectly to both.
Zachary Gole said...The dust jacket didn't explicitly give away the plot point in question, technically. But when right after referring to the two Jehovah's witnesses run over in her driveway, it says "Then, decades later, another unimaginable piece of information turns up"—combined with the fact that Patsy didn't remember the accident—it wasn't hard to guess what that "unimaginable piece of information" would be.
Sylvia said...That's awful. Yes, I read the book quite convinced that everything was correct and true. I knew she didn't remember it but that seemed par for the course and I never pondered that. Your dust jacket meant you were waiting for a revelation, whereas I was drifting comfortably.
Evil Editor said...I read the back cover, but by the time I was into the book I'd forgotten all about it. Usually what's on the back cover is lies anyway.
Zachary Gole said...Sylvia -- not only was I waiting for a revelation, but, like I said, the way the dust jacket phrased it, I'd already pretty much guessed what that revelation was going to be. And no, if it weren't for the dust jacket, I doubt I would have guessed that she wasn't really driving at the time of the accident. Regarding the back cover being lies, though, reminds me of a copy I read years ago of The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The plot as described on the back cover bore so little resemblance to the actual story that I couldn't help but wonder whether whoever wrote the back cover had even read the book...
Sylvia said...I had the opposite experience with Dust which I also read on the Kindle. The cover and blurb made it clear that the futuristic sci-fi story takes place on a generation ship. I had no idea and thought it was a particularly bizarre outdoor world until almost halfway through. It all made a lot more sense once I grasped that it was a huge space ship.
Evil Editor said...Here's a little secret of the pub industry. There are only six back-cover plot synopses. All back covers use one of them, changing only the names and places....
Zachary Gole said...While remembering the bit about the "unimaginable piece of information" when I started reading the book, I'd actually forgotten the protagonist's name from the dust jacket copy, so when I got past the prologue I was a little surprised to find that Patsy was the main character, seeing that in the prologue she seemed like a peripheral character, and came across (to me) as rather unlikeable, to boot. Not that that was a bad thing; again, it was interesting to get to see the main character briefly from a different viewpoint before spending the rest of the story behind her eyes.
Evil Editor said...So, when she finds out that crucial bit of information, should she be relieved, or is Cal right that it makes no difference?
Sylvia said...Really, it makes no difference but of course it changes everything. I thought that was awesome.
Zachary Gole said...EE - I think that's intentionally left as an open question. Both sides make some valid points. Maybe it shouldn't let her off the hook entirely, but it does mean she's not as culpable as she thought she was. Cal definitely overstates his case, but it's still true that she did some things she shouldn't have that contributed to the accident.
Evil Editor said...And that it was only a matter of time before some similar disaster befell her the way she was going.
Sylvia said...To be honest, that's how I felt. Not in a "you deserved it" way but the way her life and black-outs were set up, she wasn't portrayed as "just a fun drunk" and clearly she was going to kill herself or someone else before much longer.
Zachary Gole said...Anyway, to say something about the actual text of the book, rather than its dust jacket or punctuation, I thought it was an interesting choice to begin the book from the viewpoint of Joey, who was a relatively minor character thereafter (until the significant role she played near the end). This allowed the author to hint at Cal's infidelity to his wife early on, which she wouldn't have been able to do from Patsy's viewpoint, but I wonder what other reasons she might have had for it. It did also allow her to introduce Patsy and some other major characters as seen from a point of view different from Patsy's, of course.
Sylvia said...I noticed that because it was an odd sort of prologue. I had no idea what was coming so I actually thought that it was all going to be in the girl's words. So from that angle, I was predisposed to like Patsy from the start, because it meant the story had an adult voice.
Evil Editor said...Books that are low on plot and big on character can be boring, but I found this one riveting for some reason.
Sylvia said...I am absolutely in awe of how she took a drunk-driving-killer who got off lightly due to a technicality and had that character hold my full sympathy.
Evil Editor said...I'm in awe of how AA was a major part of the book but it didn't come across as preachy.
Robin B. said...I wasn't nuts about this book. Too special, if you know what I mean - which is the antithesis of the truly literary novel.
Sylvia said...Robin: oh good, because it's annoying when everyone likes it. The chats are much more dull. :)
Evil Editor said...Didn't like it? This was YOUR kind of book.
Robin B. said...EE, the last lit fic selection we've discussed that I truly loved was Enchantress of Florence. I like Auster's book, and did find myself thinking back on it. I think lit fic has changed - has gotten too university-professor-ized for my taste. I do like the concept of the novel - didn't mean I totally disliked the book - the way it was set up, for instance, as you mentioned, Zachary. Sylvia, it's a hoot that you love this and I don't! We agree most of the time, I'd say, don't we?
Evil Editor said...It reminded you too much of your own life; that's why you hate it so intensely.
Robin B. said...EE, you're a stinker. Don't ever change.
Sylvia said...Robin: I'm thinking through the books and I can't think of another one that we disagreed on. Although I read all the Twilight books and you threw it against the wall after a few pages. But to be honest, that was a train wreck that I couldn't look away from, by the end.
Zachary Gole said...One question I'd have loved to ask the author if she was here was what she did for research for the book. How much, and how, did she research prison life before writing? What about AA? And so forth...
Editor said...Maybe she's been in prison and is a recovering alcoholic.
Sylvia said...Her description of AA is spot on from my experience through other people. Actually, I was thinking "has AA really not changed in 20 years?" but then the Gilles plotline made it clear that it all took place about 20 years ago. ("The flu that only queers get" type things)
Zachary Gole said...Sylvia, the copy I read explicitly stated the month and year at the beginning of each part; was that not in the Kindle edition?
Sylvia said...Wow. Yes. I'm stupid.
Evil Editor said...I liked the other men in her life more than I liked Cal. But I guess he was what she needed to get her life straightened out.
Zachary Gole said...EE - I don't know that she did need Cal to get her life straightened out. The impression I got from the book was that marrying Cal was a mistake; that he wasn't really good for her. (And I thought it was implied at the end that she probably was going to end up leaving him for Lewis.)
Blogger Evil Editor said...I didn't get the impression she and Lewis would end up together at the end. I must have missed that implication.
Zachary Gole said...Well, she'd already effectively separated from Cal -- they were living in different houses -- and in the epilogue she gets the letter from Lewis (who's taking a job at the college she works at) saying that "the old agreement still holds" -- i.e., he's still interested in her if she'll leave Cal -- and her reaction to the letter implied to me that she was considering it. It wasn't presented as a sure thing, but I thought it was implied as at least a strong possibility. Again, though, that was just my impression.
Evil Editor said...I guess I read their "old agreement still holds" to mean no contact, but I failed to take into account the "unless." I'm sure they'll be happy together. Unless Bob the Boarder moves in too.
Sylvia said...Cal wasn't all that likeable, I agree. But he was a helluva lot better than Ian!
Zachary Gole said...Heh. Yeah, Cal was still probably better for her than Ian, though.
Evil Editor said...I forgot about Ian. He was the Asian guy, right? But Brice was cool, and she gave some consideration to leaving Cal for Lewis, as I recall. (Been over a month since I read it.)
Sylvia said...I loved Brice. He was such an awesome friend. Although that was clear from the start when he picked up Joey from school. He was my favourite character, I think. Followed by Patsy. And I've just realised: Patsy was one. A patsy, I mean.
Zachary Gole said...I thought the author did a very good job of creating complex characters. All the major characters in the book had several sides to their personality and had more different shades than appeared at first glance, from Gilles' deathbed misanthropy to the desire for recognition and the profligate spending that's ultimately revealed to underlie Cal's apparent benevolence. It seemed to me that Cal had wanted to marry her less out of real love than because of the self-satisfaction he gets from thinking he's turning her life around and being a force for change in the "lost". Not that that was necessarily a conscious motive, and he may have convinced himself he was in love, but that's the impression I got, anyway. Which is part of why Cal was so set on arguing that the fact she wasn't driving didn't make a difference -- he needed her to have been a broken wreck when he took her in. If she hadn't been a completely hopeless drunk who had killed two people, then his taking her under his care would have been less meaningful to him.
Sylvia said...Cal wanted to save her. If she hadn't needed saving, he wouldn't have been interested in her. If she wasn't frightened of herself and what she was capable of, she wouldn't have been interested in him. The entire relationship was based around her desperate need to stay sober. If her sobriety had come about a less dramatic way, it would not have led to their relationship.
Zachary Gole said...Sylvia - exactly. That's the impression I got about Cal and Patsy's relationship, too, but you said it more clearly than I did. As for Brice, he may have been "cool", but, heh, there was at least one likely insurmountable obstacle in the way of the two of them ever getting together again romantically. Though I thought the implication at the end that they would always remain close friends was surprisingly touching. "Twenty-one years ago she'd been sure she couldn't live without him. Fortunately, she hadn't had to." Maybe this sounds silly, but I actually cried a little when I read that.
Sylvia said...I think the lack of passion in their marriage was clearly sketched out from the start. She walks home with Ian from the movies and is filled with desire when he just brushes against her. Then they have sex and she's embarrassed at the strength of her response. She is comfortable and flattered by Cal but never talks about that burning desire. And when they do have sex, she is pleased to find out that he's competent. I thought that was pretty blatant.
Robin B. said...Having been married more than once, I can attest that there are times in life where one says - oh, what the hell - competent will have to do. Depends on where and who you 'are' at particular moments in your life.
Robin B. said...I just went over to Amazon and looked at the reviews to see if I was totally off the mark in my feelings that the book, with its subject matter, could've been great, but fell somehow short. Looks like there's a bit of a split on the reviews there as well, so I suppose it's just a matter of taste. I keep thinking about John Updike - I loved Rabbit, Run - but thought Couples was silly and trite, even though I wasn't supposed to think that.
Evil Editor said...Most books fall short of the greatness they could have attained if the authors had thought to first submit them to Evil Editor.
Sylvia said...Robin: I know I would not have read past the prologue if it wasn't for the book chat. I'm not surprised that views are split. Did anyone complain about the lack of quotes? ;)
Evil Editor said...The Amazon page has a blurb that says: The only debate arose from her unconventional dialogue. The Kansas City Star thought the lack of quotation marks and attributions gave her prose a "dreamlike, luminous depth," while other critics found it confusing.
Sylvia said...dreamlike, luminous depth well I guess that sounds pretty is that true for all punctuation or is it a special case for quotation marks
Evil Editor said...Quotation marks are special, they have curlyness, and they come in sets.
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