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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
This book is haunting. Although it is a primarily bleak tale, you won't be able to put it down or get it out of your head once you are finished. Banks does a great job of presenting each chapter from a different character's view and the reader really becomes invested in the story. It makes me want to read more of his work!
I saw this movie ages ago and avoided the book because of the topic - a bus crash in the winter that kills more than a dozen children. Told from multiple perspectives - a parent, the driver, a survivor, and the attorney - it deals with the grief but also with the personal lives of the people impacted by the tragedy and the impact on the entire small town. Despite sadness it also captures the beauty of remote upstate ny.
Except for the one huge, glaring problem with the movie, I preferred the movie. The book was working on some great stuff--telling the story from the different points of view, with everyone's individual stories. But I felt like the voices of all the narrators were too similar. And while I expected a story about grief and blame, I felt like, at times, that story was overshadowed by the "grim life in a small town" stuff from before the accident. It almost wasn't harrowing enough for what it was trying to do.
Brenda, as a big Russell Banks fan, I wonder what you'd think of it?
Brenda, as a big Russell Banks fan, I wonder what you'd think of it?
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Four narrators describe life before and after a tragedy in their small Adirondack town. Dolores Driscoll, a straightforward woman who is the breadwinner & caretaker of her husband, was driving the school bus when it went over the cliff. Billy Ansel, a respected Vietnam veteran, local businessman, and father of two, is driving behind the bus as he waves goodbye to his children inside. Mitchell Stevens is a lawyer from New York City who comes up to try to "help" the parents of the town sue the "people with the deep pockets", in some twisted attempt to sort out his anger at life, and at having an estranged addict daughter. Lastly, Nichole Burnell is a teenage survivor of the crash, and also a survivor of sexual abuse by her father who uses her deposition (or lack thereof) to exact revenge. It is fascinating how everyone describes each other, and how their own self-portrayals are often so very at odds with their "public" faces. There is a movie based on this novel, and both are very good. However, the movie is set in Canada, while the book has local appeal. The best part of the movie, aside from the enchanting flute-heavy soundtrack, is the pied piper framework which is totally absent in the book. But the book also has a lot going for it--the depth that narration provides, and the surprising climax.
I didn't expect it at all (because it was completely different form the movie, which I watched first), but the ending takes place with Dolores once again narrating, as she did at the beginning of the novel. Almost a year has passed, and she and her husband have laid low since the accident. They decide to rejoin town life at the summer county fair, at the demolition derby. The description of the derby was gripping, and the flavor was so real and true to upstate New York, and it really brought the book together.
One thing that really bugged me was the...quality of narration, I guess you would call it? It was almost like some weird middle ground between the formality of the written word and the casualness of the spoken word, and in some places it was totally distracting & didn't work for me. And Mitchell Stephen's addict daughter is a completely unbelievable character for me. She was unbelievable in the movie, and she was unbelievable in the book, with much of the same forced dialogue. These are the reason I can only give it two, maybe two and a half stars.
I didn't expect it at all (because it was completely different form the movie, which I watched first), but the ending takes place with Dolores once again narrating, as she did at the beginning of the novel. Almost a year has passed, and she and her husband have laid low since the accident. They decide to rejoin town life at the summer county fair, at the demolition derby. The description of the derby was gripping, and the flavor was so real and true to upstate New York, and it really brought the book together.
One thing that really bugged me was the...quality of narration, I guess you would call it? It was almost like some weird middle ground between the formality of the written word and the casualness of the spoken word, and in some places it was totally distracting & didn't work for me. And Mitchell Stephen's addict daughter is a completely unbelievable character for me. She was unbelievable in the movie, and she was unbelievable in the book, with much of the same forced dialogue. These are the reason I can only give it two, maybe two and a half stars.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Grief, Car accident
Moderate: Addiction, Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Infidelity
This is what you get when you write the book club guidelines before the novel.
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character