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A review by sdriscoll05
The Coffins of Little Hope by Timothy Schaffert
5.0
“The Coffins of Little Hope” by Timothy Schaffert was an incredible story. Some could argue about the ending, but this book was so much more than just its ending, that I don’t think it would reasonable or fair of a reader to simply sum it up but its ambiguousness. Reading the very first sentence I was hooked, and in vain, trying to find another sentence to quote that I loved as much as that first one, I couldn’t. So, in the same stance of Nancy Pearl, who I took this recommendation from, I have to share it.
“I still use a manual typewriter (a 1953 Underwood portable, in a robin’s egg blue) because the soft pip-pip-pip of the typing of keys on a computer keyboard doesn’t quite fit with my sense of what writing sounds like. I need the hard metal clack, and I need those keys to sometimes catch so I can reach in and untangle them, turning my fingertips inky. Without slapping the return or turning the cylinder to release the paper with a sharp whip, without all that minor havoc, I feel I’ve paid no respect to the dead. What good is an obituary if it can be written so peaceably, so undisturbingly, in the dark of night?”
I mean, holy hell, that’s a good first sentence. This book is about an obit writer and her family, or the family that she is trying to keep together, or that is trying to keep itself together. The plot moves along with the introduction of a neighbor who loses her daughter, and the towns’ fascination with whether this daughter ever existed in the first place. To be honest, this book doesn’t even need a plot line. The reader could sit at dinner with this family and listen to them talk for hours, for the entire story. It reminds me a little bit of John Grisham’s monster of a book, “The Last Juror” for its resemblance to small town life, and, if done right, how incredibly intriguing that can seem.
This book was dark, and lightly funny and it was sad. I was amazed to look at the cover and see that the author was a male, because he nailed the voice of the female protagonist. If anything this book is a high piece of literary fiction that reads like a lurid mystery. You’ll go through it quick, and wish that it were much, much longer.
“I still use a manual typewriter (a 1953 Underwood portable, in a robin’s egg blue) because the soft pip-pip-pip of the typing of keys on a computer keyboard doesn’t quite fit with my sense of what writing sounds like. I need the hard metal clack, and I need those keys to sometimes catch so I can reach in and untangle them, turning my fingertips inky. Without slapping the return or turning the cylinder to release the paper with a sharp whip, without all that minor havoc, I feel I’ve paid no respect to the dead. What good is an obituary if it can be written so peaceably, so undisturbingly, in the dark of night?”
I mean, holy hell, that’s a good first sentence. This book is about an obit writer and her family, or the family that she is trying to keep together, or that is trying to keep itself together. The plot moves along with the introduction of a neighbor who loses her daughter, and the towns’ fascination with whether this daughter ever existed in the first place. To be honest, this book doesn’t even need a plot line. The reader could sit at dinner with this family and listen to them talk for hours, for the entire story. It reminds me a little bit of John Grisham’s monster of a book, “The Last Juror” for its resemblance to small town life, and, if done right, how incredibly intriguing that can seem.
This book was dark, and lightly funny and it was sad. I was amazed to look at the cover and see that the author was a male, because he nailed the voice of the female protagonist. If anything this book is a high piece of literary fiction that reads like a lurid mystery. You’ll go through it quick, and wish that it were much, much longer.