Music for Torching

Rating:
Summary: Painfully funny and painfully tragic.
Review: A. M. Homes, Music for Torching (Morrow, 1999)

To play devil's advocate, it would be hard for any author to reproduce the sheer unadulterated evil that reverberates through A. M. Homes' wonderful novel The End of Alice. I shouldn't expect it of anyone. Yet my second trip into the delightfully twisted world of Ms. Homes came with just such expectations. She subverted them by giving birth to something so completely unlike The End of Alice that halfway through this, I'd tossed the comparisons to the wind and was just having fun hanging on for the ride.

Paul and Elaine are your typical, everyday American middle-class suburban couple. Or so we think. Then, on impulse, they set fire to their house as part of a new beginning to their lives. From there, we get to meet the rest of the neighborhood and see their reactions to the supposed tragedy. The result is a savagely funny skewering of American suburban life that's too disgusting not to be accurate.

Perhaps the best way to describe this novel is "Peyton Place on crack." Everyone's sleeping with everyone else, the Stepford wives' porcelain skin is cracking under the stress, everyone's using entirely too many drugs, Paul's incompetence at work is richly rewarded, you get the idea. Everything is going along rollickingly, and we're laughing along, guilty and embarrassed that we find this stuff funny, and all in all it looked like your typical three-star novel; readable, predictable, but good enough to recommend. Then comes the last few pages, where Homes throws a curveball that fits in with the story in every way possible, but turns the tragicomedy on its head. The sucker punch is so skillful that it raises estimation for the entire book.

Sick, twisted, and not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach, but those who found themselves in love with The End of Alice or The Safety of Objects (where Paul and Elaine first show up; that story is referred to here a number of times) are going to find much to adore in Music for Torching. ****

Rating:
Summary: First high-mark: VERY well-written.
Review: Homes has a way with prose; it flows along, the choice of words is great, and her sense of irony and humor is tremendous. Torching is never dull, and at times can be funny, erotic and sardonic. But I think Homes tries too hard to be weird (although maybe not; her book about LA proved her to be as strange as some of her characters) and ultimately, you end up having no sympathy for not only the main characters, but many of the others as well. Paul and Elaine, while fascinating, are, when the facade of "uniqueness" is pulled off, irresponsible, strange and likely dangerous people who should probably be taken away for a nice long rest period.
Overall, I'd recommend the book. Absolutely worth a read!

Rating:
Summary: Great, if flawed, characters
Review: I continue to love most of Homes' stuff. They're stories that are enjoyable to read, but grow on you even more afterward. This one, like many of her other stories, deals with disenchanted suburbanites who have checked off everything on the American Dream list (home, cars, kids, good jobs, etc.) but still haven't found happiness. The characters in this book appeared in one of Homes' short stories. In that story, the parents sent the kids to Grandma's for the weekend, then smoked crack at home in a desperate attempt to discover something new. Likewise, this book is filled with desperate attempts. In the first 30 pages, they set the house on fire because they just want something different. But as over the top as their desperation is, it's something we can still relate to. I think that's what makes it such an enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Very well written by a very talented author
Review: I discovered A.M. Homes through a book of short stories she wrote called The Safety of Objects. I was so impressed with her writing and unique style, I decided to pick up Music for Torching (which is actually based on the characters from one of the short stories in The Safety of Objects). Music for Torching tells the story of a middle aged couple who are stuck in their lives, they both strive for some sort of change, but neither is sure what they really want. An ill conceived idea leads to them burning down one of the rooms in their house and as they put the pieces of their home back together, they try to put the pieces of their lives back together. Music for Torching is an exquisitely written book with characters who jump off the pages; A.M. Homes is one of the finer contemporary writers I've read and her ability to expose the inner being of here characters is amazing. Music for Torching isn't a book for everyone and it does explore several mature themes, but in the end it's a fascinating trip through the lives of two people trying to get unstuck.

Rating:
Summary: Pain and Ennui, But Removed and Dulled
Review: I was looking forward to the American Beauty aspect I heard this book contained, having loved the sharp comedy and bitter pain of the movie. I also respect A.M. Homes and her other work (The End of Alice, The Safety of Objects). As the main characters, Elaine and Paul, the embodiment of suburbia, started off on a bad foot and got even worse, I became enraged with them. They're just shuffling through life. This book was completely depressing, but I couldn't stop myself from reading it. The characters were well-defined in their pathetic misdirection, but they kept miring me deeper and deeper into their ennui. The book actually started affecting me and making me feel unhappy and flat. I was glad to be done reading it and on to something more emotionally charged. The book made me feel, but I didn't like what I felt. Both Paul and Elaine are weak characters, and I felt sorry for their children, adrift with parents who are more childish than they. The end of the book reinforced my feelings-that when adults are lost, it's the children who suffer the results. At least people used to put up a farce for their kids. Now, they do well if they can find a way to forget about it for an hour or two, whatever that takes or costs.

Rating:
Summary: AMERICAN BEAUTY 2
Review: I'm not sure which came first, the screenplay to American Beauty or this novel, either way they are identical in it's treatment of suburbia life.In this novel, you learn that the main characters are completely lost in their lives and do absolutely ridiculous things to try to reconnect with themselves. The problem is that I don't think the characters "KNOW" themselves at all. The reader knows that the characters are unhappy now but I often wondered if they were ever happy. Especially since the main character's mother is so disfunctional as well. Homes does a great job of showing how screwed up this family is, but I don't think she let's the reader know how they got that way. This fact was the only bad thing about this book. Homes' style is to drop you in the middle of the story and to leave the reader there as if your spying on the characters. No revelations or answers are proposed. There's no build up, climax or resolution.

On the other hand, the predicaments these couples get themselves into are absolutely hilarious as well as being insane and just like in American Beauty you don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for them.

Even in the tragic ending you don't get a sense that the parents have actually learned anything.

Overall, I thought this was a good book, i just wish I learned more about the main characters past.

Rating:
Summary: She's done it again!
Review: I've read both short story books by A.M. Homes and loved them. This is the first novel I've read by her, and I loved it. I couldn't put this book down. I never knew what crazy thing was going to happen next. I could relate to alot of Elaine's feelings regarding her life.

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Entertaining!
Review: I've read everything A.M. Homes has written and found this book to be one of her best. My all-time favorite is "The Safety of Objects" (short stories) and "Music for Torching" was a wonderful read. I loved just about everything about the book: the characters were wonderful, interesting and believable, the plot was engaging and perfectly paced, and Homes' dark humor had me laughing out loud. But her characters are also very sad and I could totally relate to Elaine's need for self-discovery. Here was the only flaw: Elaine's sexual liaison with the cop just didn't need to happen. That's why I gave the book four stars instead of five. It added nothing to the story and I found it a bit gratuitous. Even with all of their flaws I loved Paul and Elaine and felt sad when the book ended because I wanted to keep them around like old friends. In a weird way I wanted to continue with them on their tragic journey. As far as I'm concerned, A.M. Homes is one of the shining stars of contemporary fiction. Her writing is always original and brilliant! Good job!

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing read
Review: In A. M. Homes book MUSIC FOR TORCHING, we follow the lives of the married couple Elaine and Paul. An unhappy family living in suburbia. hey decide to push over their barbecue and it burns down their house. Their friends George and Pat invite them to live with them, while they renovate the house. Elaine puts her energy into restoring the house, all while struggling with her marriage with Paul and trying to raise her kids. Paul is having affairs with different women, and unhappy with Elaine. They do not know if they love each other anymore. There was quite a few twists and turns in the book, some were shocking, others were just strange, but I really got absolved into the book. The book was surprisingly good. The book doesn't have your typical happy ending, everything's gonna be alright type attitude. You don't even feel like you should be sorry for these characters, or that they are trying to make you respect their decisions. It is what it is, and that's it. Just honest truth. A pretty good read.

Rating:
Summary: I'm probably missing something here . . .
Review: The author's last book, and the first one of his I'd read, was *The End of Alice*, and it was, well, not exactly fun, but kind of weird and definitely interesting. This one is also weird, but not nearly as interesting. I picked it up because a friend saw me reading *The Ice Storm* and recommended this as a contemporary novel of the highly dysfunctional family. And the Weisses are certainly that. Paul and Elaine, both forty-ish, swing between passionate sex and sniping based on mutual loathing. In a fit of psychic panic (or something), they collaborate in tipping over a charcoal grill and setting fire to their house, after which they pack the kids in the car and hightail it to a motel. But the house is only damaged, not destroyed (denying them their new start), and they have to stay with their perfect neighbors. Or not-so-perfect, actually. And Paul discovers the luxury of sleeping in a lacy nightgown. And Elaine discovers lesbian sex. And their twelve-year-old son begins collecting evidence of the arson. And there's The Date, who frequently calls on Paul's cell phone, and Paul's ill-conceived tattoo, and some truly strange commuters on the train. And all of this should lead to fascinating, culturally illuminating characters and situations, but that somehow never happens. Too bad.