<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Glad my kids are grown.....
Review: "Preston Falls" does its best to have things both ways. On the one hand, it fancies itself a complex character study. What happens to the idealist, after years in a job he's too good for and a family he may not love, when he spends two months in a cabin in the woods? What happens to his family and the long-suffering wife? On the other hand, there are some decent mystery-thriller elements in the book's second half, that push it into the realm of the page-turner. The amazing thing is that it functions equally well in both respects.The story is essentially told in two halves. The first is told from Willis' point of view. He is a cynical curmudgeon (regular readers of this space will know of the soft spot in my heart for that character type), smarter and more literate than he needs to be, and condescending to those that surround him. And oh yeah, he loves his guitars (being an amateur guitar nerd myself, I related quite strongly to Willis' need to "rock out" on a daily basis). The second half is told from the perspective of Willis' wife, Jean. Jean, in the first half of the book, does not do much but nag and sulk. She was not truly defined, except in relation to Willis. She was "Willis' Wife", and not much more. Thus, I was not looking forward to getting inside her head. Thankfully, Gates does a fine job of fleshing out her character, and letting the reader in on her secret desires. He does this (both with Jean and with Willis) chiefly by amplifying their self-awareness. Jean knows that when she lies to her kids they probably see through it, and wonders how much damage she is doing. Yet she does it repeatedly. Willis at one point, in a typical moment of clarity, asks himself: "How can this happen to someone so well read?" They are both self-conscious to the bitter end, and it is all handled so well, that the reader is hard-pressed to believe that these are merely fictional characters. Gates has a fine flair for dialogue. He is able to produce some flashy and witty turns of phrase (usually spouting from the mouth of Willis' brother Champ), but thankfully lets loose only sporadically. The other times, the dialogue is very smart, but also very real. He is not afraid to give 12-year old daughter Mel(anie) a line such as "I've already had like how many first days of school in my life" because that is how a 12-year old girl would talk. Some have criticized the book for getting bogged down in details. Sure, there are several instances where a laundry list of items found in the Willis' kitchen tries to pass itself off as a paragraph of prose. It didn't annoy me. Rather, I found it quite necessary. Gates gets a lot of mileage out of showing the characters in their surroundings with their material possessions (e.g. Books they were reading, albums they'd listen to, TV shows they would watch, etc.). It worked well to me. What didn't work well was Gates' overindulgence in the use of italics. Most pages had not one, but three or four sentences of dialogue where italics were used, as if Gates was uncomfortable letting the reader decide where emphasis should fall. That's just a minor critique, but one I thought worth mentioning. Overall, the book reminded me of similar terrain trotted on by Don DeLillo (the suburban angst of "White Noise") and Richard Russo (mostly "Straight Man", but also "Nobody's Fool"). Although Gates doesn't approach the greatness of those authors -- a difficult feat if you ask me -- he does hold his own.
Rating: 
Summary: a unique voice, and a compelling story
Review: Another reviewer here mentioned similarities with Updike and Russo, two authors I have read recently. I concur with that; the male character in this novel is in the throes of confusion, as is Rabbit, and confronts his real self, a bit like the main character in Empire Falls. But this book stands out for its excellent depiction of the breakdown of both a person and a relationship. Gates is very perceptive in presenting the tiny details that herald this breakdown - the subtle dialogue, the intimate feelings, and the situations that are too complicated for normal people. This is an emotional story, about love and loss, about trying to cope and giving in to primal desires. Unforgettable, but I can't give it 5 stars, which I reserve for Updike and Russo.
Rating: 
Summary: Sucked
Review: How can an author use a cursing, idiotic, and a simple-minded voice as his own, when telling a story from a third-person point of view? Let your characters curse and be stupid, but why do we need a narator who is an idiot as well?
The author says 4-letter words when he describes things, just to seem "edgy." Learn how to write, my friend, and find a voice people want to hear.
Rating:
Summary: The Quintissential Guide to Guys
Review: I didn't want to read this book. I really didn't. I passed it by dozens of times in the bookstore, reaching for something else instead, a confection when I had the taste for meat. Male angst-again. Updike, Heller, Russo, I've been there, done that. So not again. Not now. I finally picked it up one day after an hour-long search found me still novel-less. Oh, well. Whatever. Three days later, I put it down. "Preston Falls" is so gripping, so real, so harrowing, you'll let the phone ring off the hook until you're finished. You want to tell Willis to shape up, do the right thing; but if you're a guy, you know that it wouldn't do any good. I'd write more but I just picked up "Jernigan" and feel the need to get started. Oh, one more thing: why only four stars you ask? Hey, if I gave the man five, he'd only let me down next time.
Rating:
Summary: The Quintissential Guide to Guys
Review: I didn't want to read this book. I really didn't. I passed it by dozens of times in the bookstore, reaching for something else instead, a confection when I had the taste for meat. Male angst-again. Updike, Heller, Russo, I've been there, done that. So not again. Not now. I finally picked it up one day after an hour-long search found me still novel-less. Oh, well. Whatever. Three days later, I put it down. "Preston Falls" is so gripping, so real, so harrowing, you'll let the phone ring off the hook until you're finished. You want to tell Willis to shape up, do the right thing; but if you're a guy, you know that it wouldn't do any good. I'd write more but I just picked up "Jernigan" and feel the need to get started. Oh, one more thing: why only four stars you ask? Hey, if I gave the man five, he'd only let me down next time.
Rating:
Summary: Seemed Pointless
Review: I must have missed something, because I thought this book was incredibly boring and completely pointless. I kept hoping that something would happen to these unhappy characters, but it never does. By the end, I wanted the author would kill Willis off to guarantee there wouldn't be sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Do yourself and Mr. Gates a favor: Read this book
Review: I utterly agree with the most recent poster's assessment of this book--it is dark, funny and ruthless--and the decline of reading skills in America. In some regards, people's lack of knowledge of the stories in the books that Willis reads helps matters in some way--for me at least. While I can't pretend to have known about all the books Willis reads, I do know that Mr. Gates has probably read them and is putting them in the story for a reason. But, because I haven't read them, I can't draw the an ironic connection between Willis reading these books--and maybe that's a good thing. Because I don't know about these books then I'm not thinking about how I'm reading a book about a man who's on a quest who's reading books about going on a quest (follow me?) and thus I'm not distracted by this fact or the author's reading list. To me, knowing the books' histories is the secret prize at the bottom of the Crackerjack box. If you know those books, fine. If not, admire the witty repartee and other things throughout. And you should read this book because it is funny, wise, dead-on, imaginative, inventive, up-to-the-minute, hip, ironic, tragic, sexy, goofy, and sad. It is a book that has Public Enemy and Charles Dickens. Illicit drugs and making fun of NPR. It is a book that explains the secrets Keith Richards' guitar. And it features a cameo by the Land O' Lakes Indian woman and the wonderful knee trick that you can do on your very own box of butter. (If you haven't seen this or know about this, well, it is truly as Willis says, about the funniest thing, ever.) Any book, any modern book, that has all of these things plus some of the best dialogue around and, to boot, tackles the weighty subject of what modern man is to do now that we're so smart yet still so human thus doomed by our knowledge that we will always and forever be human--deep breath--well, this book deserves wide admiration and adulation. Act now, supplies limited! Plus, it's a Guy Book. So men should read this and will probably love this more than women. (And one thing is not mutually exclusive to the other.) Plus, his short story collection "The Wonders of the Invisible World" ain't bad either. In fact, it's great too. But "Preston Falls" is the Big Important Book that everyone should read. And remember.
Rating:
Summary: Because These People Could Be Us, This Is A Very Scary Book
Review: Willis is one of the most compelling characters I have ever encountered. As his marriage crumbles and his children avoid him, he isolates himself so as to be able to concentrate on his bitterness. He dervies so much pleasure from being able to justify his anger, addictions and selfishness that I was actually rooting him on in his quest for self destruction. He has no idea what it is that he really wants from his life, but you can be sure that it's everyone elses fault that he isn't getting it. His indignation at the world and the people in his life is so encompassing, so without personal blame, that rock bottom just doesn't exist for him. He never looks back, not once, and the result is horrifying, but delicious to watch.
<< 1 >>
|
