I really did not like this book at all. It starts off being sort of silly poverty porn and ends up in an action movie. Really, I did not like it.
I wanted to like it: the back is covered in glowing reviews. Which now, when I re-read them, to see what I missed, I note are all written by men. I am unsurprised. This is an archetypal boy’s book.
It’s about some teenage boy who returns from the Korean War to Kentucky. He marries a teenage girl he saves from being raped by her uncle and then goes on to have a bunch of disabled children with her before going to prison for a crime he didn’t commit and ending up coming home to kill the man who betrayed him. Meanwhile he loves his wife and children. I mean, really.
I think the worst part about it, was the starkly humourless tone. I don’t think there is a joke in the whole thing. This is the kind of writing you do when you don’t know very many poor people. Not to say I have ever been truly poor, but in my experience humourlessness is a privilege of the rich. Poor people couldn’t get through their lives if they weren’t able to laugh at them.
The other worst part was the silly action movie ending. And the other worst part was the pretentious style. Try this:
The world appeared for the first time beautiful, the air scoured of dust by the rain, each leaf holding a sheen of water. She could smell the loam and wildflowers, hear the birds braiding their song along the land.
I mean, I for sure don’t like ‘braiding,’ but I think it’s the use of the word ‘loam’ that really broke me.