You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Scan barcode
A review by ojtheviking
The Boatman's Daughter by Andy Davidson
3.0
This novel has a lot of elements that I like. It mixes the swampy, humid Southern bayou with Russian folklore, mixes Southern Gothic with a noir-like vibe, and the overall idea is an interesting one. It has a lot going for it, but ultimately, a few things prevented it from being perfect in my eyes.
There's a paradox of sorts here, where Davidson's writing style is vastly detailed, painting a vivid picture of the surroundings until you can almost feel and smell the woods, the swampy river, the perpetually mentioned kudzu, and he'll take you through a character's actions point by point as they interact with objects around them, but at the same time, there's something a bit abstract about the whole thing. As if he got so lost in his descriptions to build an atmosphere that he forgot to properly go beneath the surface of it all.
Rarely is any time spent exploring the characters internally, what they think and feel, and to me, that made it difficult to ever get fully invested in them. Not that the characters weren't interesting at all; it's an intentionally peculiar ensemble, but I just wished some of them were slightly more fleshed out than they were. Some sections just felt like long descriptions of characters going around doing things, which, again, made it a bit shallow.
With that said, though, there's no question that this man can write. It's very eloquent for what it is, and I am not saying I disliked it. It's just that to me, the book could have been written exactly as it was, but if he took the moment here and there to weave more character development into the fabric, especially some more insight into the characters' inner life, that would have made the reading experience that much better for me.
There's a paradox of sorts here, where Davidson's writing style is vastly detailed, painting a vivid picture of the surroundings until you can almost feel and smell the woods, the swampy river, the perpetually mentioned kudzu, and he'll take you through a character's actions point by point as they interact with objects around them, but at the same time, there's something a bit abstract about the whole thing. As if he got so lost in his descriptions to build an atmosphere that he forgot to properly go beneath the surface of it all.
Rarely is any time spent exploring the characters internally, what they think and feel, and to me, that made it difficult to ever get fully invested in them. Not that the characters weren't interesting at all; it's an intentionally peculiar ensemble, but I just wished some of them were slightly more fleshed out than they were. Some sections just felt like long descriptions of characters going around doing things, which, again, made it a bit shallow.
With that said, though, there's no question that this man can write. It's very eloquent for what it is, and I am not saying I disliked it. It's just that to me, the book could have been written exactly as it was, but if he took the moment here and there to weave more character development into the fabric, especially some more insight into the characters' inner life, that would have made the reading experience that much better for me.