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sheltzer 's review for:
Bellman & Black
by Diane Setterfield
As a boy, William Bellman kills a rook with his catapult. He pushes it to the back of his brain never to be thought of again. But the rooks remember.
As Bellman grows, he is shadowed by this one event. He is a successful businessman who runs a mill (we learn in excruciating detail) and one by one, his loved ones die, culminating in an epidemic which takes his wife and 3 of 4 children. As his favorite daughter lay dying, he makes a deal with Black.
I continued with the book up until this point because I wanted to know where it was going.
It was going to the construction and running of Bellman & Black, a department store for the mourning. Which we also learn about in excruciating detail. By this point the book slowed to a crawl, but being only 100 pages from the end I soldiered on to the not-so-satisfying resolution.
I don't know what I wanted. I guess if his daughter was important enough to give up his soul for, I think he should have had some kind of relationship with her and she was an afterthought through the second half of the book.
What a disappointment since I enjoyed the Thirteenth Tale so much.
As Bellman grows, he is shadowed by this one event. He is a successful businessman who runs a mill (we learn in excruciating detail) and one by one, his loved ones die, culminating in an epidemic which takes his wife and 3 of 4 children. As his favorite daughter lay dying, he makes a deal with Black.
I continued with the book up until this point because I wanted to know where it was going.
It was going to the construction and running of Bellman & Black, a department store for the mourning. Which we also learn about in excruciating detail. By this point the book slowed to a crawl, but being only 100 pages from the end I soldiered on to the not-so-satisfying resolution.
I don't know what I wanted. I guess if his daughter was important enough to give up his soul for, I think he should have had some kind of relationship with her and she was an afterthought through the second half of the book.
What a disappointment since I enjoyed the Thirteenth Tale so much.