Sweet Hearts

Rating:
Summary: One of the country's very best fiction writers
Review: "Sweet Hearts" wowed me from the first pages--I loved the tension of the voices here, the mystery of the past, the delicate, deaf narrator who is yet deft and powerful and gorgeous in her understanding of her damaged people. I've never felt so connected to such hurt and harm--Thon has a way of making every human corner so accessible and understandable, all while making poetry of these lives. The book builds and builds and grows in subtle layers--lovely stuff, an experience more than a read. "Sweet Hearts" leads me back to my old favorite Thon books--she's a master of the short story, too. I've got to stop now, go back to the book--it's one of those you read and finish and just turn back to page one to experience again. Melanie Rae Thon is a national treasure. I want to give this one six stars.

Rating:
Summary: One of the country's very best fiction writers
Review: As much as I had awaited Melanie Rae Thon's "Sweet Hearts," I had anticipated a much more coherent, significant exploration of the themes Ms. Thon murkily attempted to expound in her most recent novel. The author boldly tackles a myriad of issues, ranging from the profound psyhcological scars which have endured in Native Americanbs to the causation and remediation of juvenile delinquency. In between, Ms. Thon involves a deaf narrator who, mysteriously and oh-so-profoundly, provides enlightenment as to the whys of her family's disintegration and her nephew's involvement in a life's work of violence and social degradation. Make no mistake about it; Ms. Thon should be praised for her willingness to explore very difficult themes. Yet, she also needs to know that it is possible to write a book that is important without having the novel bludgeon you with the message that "THIS IS AN IMPORTANT BOOK."

"Sweet Hearts" is actually three books within one, and no one aspect ever attains either the artisitic or moral integrity necessary for success. At times brutally candid and psychologically instructive to the anguish and degradation that successive generations of Native Americans have internalized, the novel digresses into disjointed (and occasionally incoherent) internal monologues by the deaf narrator, Marie, whose own life could be the basis of a novel itself. Thon, more often than not, tantalizes the reader with her knowledge of Native American history and social psychology, but she never fully integrates this perception into understanding a second section of "Sweet Hearts," the fractured relationship between two siblings, angelic and emotionally undernourished Cecile and her violence-crazed half-brother, Flint. Once again, Thon presents a carefully researched view of juvenile delinquency, the juvenile justice system and prison brutality (if you don't believe me, just look at her footnotes). This section of the novel opened up the greatest possibilities; yet whenever the author seemed to engross the reader in the cascading wreck of the two childrens' lives, she managed to meander into yet another section of her novel, that being an exploration of family and the inevitable pull of the past on those living today. The fascinating and marvelously imagined family tree of Marie and her tormented sister Frances too infrequently bears fruit; once again, the author seemed determined to avoid coherence at any cost.

I have no question that Melanie Rae Thon understands the beauty and mystery of language. There are numerous passages in this well-meaning novel which simply soar. However, these glimpses into the genuine talent of the author are overwhelmed by page after page of rambling, disjointed internal interrogatories and passages so overwritten that they simply could be skipped by a discerning reader without any loss of understanding or empathy. I cannot share the warm reviews of other readers; "Sweet Hearts" is a noble but flawed work.

Rating:
Summary: Masterful, profound, devastating.
Review: Contrary to the title, there is very little sweetness in Sweet Hearts; every character in this book has a personal tragedy. As the narrator, Marie Zimmer, tells us, "There's no safe place in this story."

Sweet Hearts encompasses several generations of family history in compact prose. Thon mercifully provides a map of Montana and a family tree to help the reader keep track of the cast of characters. The characters' speech is also compact, demonstrating the strained communication among this family.

For the first fifty pages or so, my heart broke about once per page. An image, a turn of phrase, a single word would capture the bleakness inherent in these character's lives. I think that was necessary to open the reader up to the story, to prepare for what's to come.

This is a demanding novel in a number of ways. Most of all, the ending asks the reader to forgive the unforgivable. You can't just read this book as an intellectual exercise--you need to let it take you where it goes, to find compassion for all the characters. It is by no means easy or light reading, but I found it entirely rewarding. This book is worth all the effort.

Rating:
Summary: Masterful, profound, devastating.
Review: Contrary to the title, there is very little sweetness in Sweet Hearts; every character in this book has a personal tragedy. As the narrator, Marie Zimmer, tells us, "There's no safe place in this story."

Sweet Hearts encompasses several generations of family history in compact prose. Thon mercifully provides a map of Montana and a family tree to help the reader keep track of the cast of characters. The characters' speech is also compact, demonstrating the strained communication among this family.

For the first fifty pages or so, my heart broke about once per page. An image, a turn of phrase, a single word would capture the bleakness inherent in these character's lives. I think that was necessary to open the reader up to the story, to prepare for what's to come.

This is a demanding novel in a number of ways. Most of all, the ending asks the reader to forgive the unforgivable. You can't just read this book as an intellectual exercise--you need to let it take you where it goes, to find compassion for all the characters. It is by no means easy or light reading, but I found it entirely rewarding. This book is worth all the effort.

Rating:
Summary: Compassion and Culpability in Thon's Remarkable Storytelling
Review: For those who have never encountered the work of Melanie Rae Thon, this book serves as a powerful introduction. Thon's characters are memorable, palpable reminders of our own difficult journeys through family and history. Marie, a deaf woman, retells the story of her sister's children against the backdrop of their own submerged family history. But Thon's storytelling isn't merely a fascinating tale of children turned criminal and abandoned by family and society; Thon's writing is marked by lyricism and grace. She brings us Flint and Cecile, children we have seen echoes of in our contemporary world--the ones we hear about before clicking off the television at night--and we see the family that shaped them, the family that refuses to accept responsibility for them. Marie is the novel's quiet conscience, assessing her own role in the children's crimes. The result: we, as readers, question our own culpability and our own capacity for compassion. Thon's characters jar us out of our own passivity, and readers emerge from the novel with a new sense of self. It is a stunning, remarkable book, and Thon is unlike any other living writer today.