A review by wanderinglynn
Mink River by Brian Doyle

Did not finish book. Stopped at 23%.

This is the second time I've tried to read this book and I'm finally calling it quits at 15%. 

This is not a book for me. Most of the time I felt myself skimming because nothing happened. This book, at least as far as I read, basically contains vignettes or interludes on various residents' day to day lives. The story, if there is one, focuses on the town than on any character. And so, there doesn't seem to be an actual plot. Maybe had the town actually come to life somehow. . .

At first, some of the prose was quite descriptive. But the run-on nature felt more like poetry and made me skim more and more in an effort to try to find a plot. For example, from the first page (as is printed in the book):

Not an especially stunning town, stunningtownwise—there are no ancient stone houses perched at impossible angles over eye-popping vistas with little old ladies in black shawls selling goat cheese in the piazza while you hear Puccini faintly in the background sung by a stunning raven-haired teenage girl who doesn't yet know the power and poetry of her voice not to mention everything else.

Yes, that is 1 paragraph as it is written. Run-on, no punctuation save for the em dash. (And he seems to love em dashes as there are 4 on the first page.) It felt as if the author was trying too hard to be "literary". Some sentences went on and on and on, with so many metaphors or descriptions. I had to often stop and reread a half page (or more) because I'd lose the thread of the sentence due to the lack of punctuation and run-ons. A prime example is this overly wordy sentence from part 1, chapter 9 that introduces Owen and his pet crow Moses:

Close your eyes for a minute and think of all the closets you have ever crammed with stuff, and all the basement workbenches asprawl with tools, and the shelves crowded with fishing gear and sports equipment and paintbrushes and furnace filters and nails and eyelets and grommets and washers and such, and merge them all in your mind, not haphazardly but with a general sense of order a relaxed and affectionate organization sense, such that you would have a pretty good rough idea where something might be if you need to find it, and when you went to look for it you would find it in less than a minute and even when something took more than a minute to find, you would find something else that you'd been looking for not desperately but assiduously; then think of all the rich dark male smells you have ever liked, the smells that remind you of your dad, your grandfather, your uncle, your older brother.

At least this "sentence" had some punctuation.

He also uses the technique of repetition, which can work if not overused. But he would fill an entire page, and the use felt more poetic than prose (italics added):

Grace is on her knees in a bed. No Horses is on her knees in the woods in the dark by her unconscious son who is face-down his shattered knees wet with blood and mud. Maple Head is on her knees in her kitchen looking for a broiling pan. The doctor is on his knees in his closet looking for his mudding boots. The man who lied in court is kneeling on the beach praying. Cedar is on his knees in the doctor's tool shed looking for rope. Worried Man is on his knees on the porch of the Department of Public Works praying. Rachel is on her knees in the tub of the cabin up in the hills. Her boyfriend Timmy is on his knees facing her. . . .

And this goes on for an entire page. And this is basically the entire "chapter".

While something like conversations occur, there aren't any quotation marks. So I wasn't clear if it was supposed to be dialogue or some record of an exchange.  So I'll call it an "exchange" instead of "dialogue" because of the lack of quotation marks. Given that there was no plot, it's hard to tell. But these exchanges are written one paragraph at a time, often as short sentences, such as:

Yum, says the taller of the two men.
Yup, says the other.
Not everyone likes salmonberries.
Vulgarians.
I am told they are an acquired taste.
Vulagarians?
Salmonberries.
Yeh. Listen this afternoon we have to get back to work on. the Oral History Project. We promised that we would get back to work on it the day after the rains stopped and the rains stopped last night and we have to get to work We are behind something awful on the Oral History Project.
One of our best ideas absolutely. Whose idea was that?
Yours.
Was it?

And this exchange goes on page and a half. And dialogue didn't always feel authentic, didn't flow as a conversation would. Again, it felt more like poetry than prose.

This book is largely about the town overall, not about individuals, which made it difficult to distinguish between the individual characters. And there certainly wasn't any character development because the characters were all flat and lifeless. Maybe I missed the deeper point or meaning because I didn't get far enough into the book. But since I found it difficult to read because of how disjointed it was and how much the writing meandered, I couldn't make myself read more than I did.

Sadly, not for me.