I have one thing to say to the main characters of this book, and I feel that it can best be expressed through interpretive song and dance:
Jesus Christ. You could drown in the self-pity in this book. There are entire chapters - MANY of those chapters - where the characters do nothing but sit and think about how miserable they are, how terrible their lives are, where they went wrong, when it will all be over, all the mistakes they've made, etc. etc. I am recently arrived in New Zealand and having a blast, but every time I picked up this book it killed any happy feeling I had going and then gave me another thirty pages of sad, dripping prose. This is book thirty on the list, and while I have honestly suffered during some of these, I've always been able to finish the novel. This one, I couldn't. I stopped at around 300 pages in when Nathan and his secret daughter have (yet another) stupid, silly argument which I thought would be resolved quickly. Then I turned the page and found out that the author had decided to skip a year in the narrative, a year in which the two main characters hadn't spoken a word to each other. And they live on an island together. An island which has a total population of nine people. For a year. I hate to put down books halfway, but I literally could not go on with this one.
Brief plot rundown before I dive in here: The book centers on two characters, Nathan Staples, a successful author, and a young writer named Mary Lamb. Little known to Mary, Nathan is actually her secret father who hasn't seen her since she was a child, but they are thrown back together when Mary is accepted into the Lighthouse, a reclusive community of writers who live in a tiny, stormy island. Of course, Nathan also lives there and is her mentor, but is too chicken to tell her that he's her dad, so they just akwardly dance around each other and mope about the depression that is life. For hundreds of pages.
Some positive stuff: I actually started off really liking this one. I loved the character of Mary pre-island, the struggles of growing up, leaving home, the cute boy who wants to lick your ear, etc. I liked Mary pre-island a lot. Of course, that all got ruined when she moved there and about 90% of her dialogue became some form of "Fuck you, Nathan!". Although I don't think this particular author can string together a plotline to save her life, she does know her prose, and she had some beautiful turns of phrase that reminded me of the last book I read, the Sea. This is a weird thing to say, but her descriptions of Nathan's dog were particularly spot on and lovely, probably just because I miss my own dog so much right now.
Onto the bad: This book went nowhere. There was no narrative thread. There was just endless misery without any chink of bright light to pull it together. And it was so melodramatic. Random indecent exposure from elderly woman and child murders and cheap plot devices that took us nowhere...it never ended. Every single gesture or careless word warranted an entire paragraph about life and mortality and God and sex, which believe me, got kind of monotonous after awhile. Also, I found the whole premise of the book kind of ridiculous; why would any girl in the prime of her life willingly go spend nine years on a secluded island in the middle of nowhere to try to write better? Girl, I don't know who forgot to tell you, but writing and living kind of go hand in hand, and being miserable on an island all day isn't living.
Oh, man, I could go on forever. I literally wanted to reach into the pages and strangle Nathan at some points, and Mary as well. I cannot believe that this book was so well received. Don't get me wrong, I don't think books should be all sunshine and rainbows all the time - I mean, I love Steppenwolf, and poor Harry is just about the most miserable son of a bitch on the planet. But even though you can't really say Steppenwolf has a happy ending, at least it has a hint of joie de vivre, a light at the end of the tunnel, a point. This book? Nada.
In Summary: If you're looking for a novel that will convince you that life is an endless misery, a torment that cannot be escaped, without a hint of bravery or love or hope involved, look no further, my friend - this is the book for you.
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