Friday Book Report: Front Porch Prophet by Raymond Atkins

Written by Raymond Atkins, The Front Porch Prophet is Southern storytelling at its best.  It was published in 2008 by Medallion Press.

Welcome to Sequoyah, Georgia where A.J. Longstreet was born and raised and is still carving out a living.  Sequoyah is your typical small, southern town; from the elderly neighbor that cannot drive to the trigger happy constable that shoots first and asks questions later.  The residents of Sequoyah aren’t just residents, they are a part of this town, and their roots are buried deep in the red Georgia clay.  Everyone has a story here, and A.J takes a trip down memory lane while battling with the ideas of mortality and the meaning of life.  His memories of the past and the people he’s known for years help him make one of the toughest decisions he’s ever had to face. 

Eugene Purdue and A.J. have been friends since childhood.  They’ve shared and done many a memorable thing together and sometimes have even gotten into situations better left forgotten.  After a falling out due to Eugene’s lack of responsibility and anger management, he reenters A.J.’s life with terminal pancreatic cancer and one big favor to ask of A.J.  He want’s A.J. to kill him when the time comes.  This is one favor that A.J. isn’t sure he can accept, and after a lot of reminiscing and soul-searching, A.J. has to decide if he can be the one to undertake this difficult task.

I really enjoyed this book.  Atkins brings the small town of Sequoyah to life with beautifully described characters, scenery and everything in-between that gives a small town its charm.  His storytelling is compelling, and while reading I felt like he was telling me the story instead of reading it.  I swear I kept hearing the narrator from “The Dukes of Hazzard” in my head every time Atkins took us to A.J and Eugene’s past.  There’s a lot of reminiscing in this book, and while most times I think it would detract from the overall plot, in this book it gave the characters a backstory that allowed for more depth and color.  It’s one humorous vignette after another, and although it can get a bit confusing going back and forth from past to present and keeping the timelines straight, I thought all the nostalgia this book displayed just added that touch of southern charm that makes this book as endearing as it is.

Sometimes the small town characters can seem a bit outlandish, but for the most part I think Atkins did a great job telling their story.  You could really envision Brickhead, the simple-man looking for love and the quirky Callahan family that named their offspring after their favorite authors.  I really loved A.J. and his wife Maggie (born Margaret Mitchell Callahan) and I wish Maggie was more involved in this story.  While Eugene may have been A.J.’s past, Atkins makes it very clear that Maggie is his present and future.  She is his rock, and despite everything else changing, Maggie is always there.  There are lots of secrets A.J. has tried to keep, but I loved that he always told Maggie everything, even the painful and heartbreaking ones.  A.J. doesn’t keep things from his wife, and I found that solidarity between them so admirable.  Personally, I was more interested in Maggie and A.J.’s story, but I think that has to do with me being a woman.  Men would find the random acts of stupidity Eugene and A.J. get into as young adults humorous and maybe even a little reminiscent of times long since forgotten.

I highly recommend this book.  It’s about life and death and everything in-between, but it’s not depressing, in fact it’s very funny and very well told.  It’s also about real relationships and all those people and the tiny decisions we make each day that make us who we are.  If you’ve ever lived in a small town (like me) this book will captivate you and you’ll find yourself reminiscing about the “good ol’ days” when life seemed less complicated.  I give this book an A- grade; it’s got stellar writing and a great story to go with it.  The characters are vivid and charming and the storytelling is some of the best I’ve read in a long time.  It’s humorous and uplifting despite the fact that death is eminent.  It’s does have some harsh country-boy language and I wouldn’t recommend for younger readers, but if you’re looking for a great Southern story about life, death and the decisions in-between I would suggest you pick up The Front Porch Prophet.  You won’t be disappointed, I certainly wasn’t.

Friday Book Report: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Sara Gruen’s novel, Water For Elephants takes the reader back in time when travelling circus’ arrived on trains, and any and everything went on to make the show a success.  It was published in 2006 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Jacob Jankowski was just days away from taking his final exams and graduating Cornell with a veterinary degree when he learns that his parents have died in a car accident.  Grief stricken, Jacob returns home to identify their body and settle their estate; the problem is there is no estate to settle.  The Jankowski’s were late on their mortage payments and therefore the bank has taken over.  Jacob is left with nothing.  He returns to school to finish his exams, but instead he walks out of the classroom and wanders through the night before finally jumping on a train intent to roll away from this life and start over.  It isn’t until the next day he realizes he’s jumped on the train of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.  A travelling circus.  With his almost degree as a veterinarian, he finds work with the show caring for the menagerie of animals.  Jacob also finds Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star and his life is never the same again.

With all the fuss involving this book, I was very hopeful when reading.  Sadly, I came away disappointed.  This book had so much potential and it just fell short, in my opinion.  I was intrigued with the story and the inner workings of a third-rate travelling circus, but I couldn’t connect with the characters.  Oh, there’s definitely a lot of action and it does get you to turn the pages, but once the pages are turned all you’re left with is just a book loaded with filler and no real depth.  It felt like all those action and suspense sequences took away from what should have been the real story, and it distracted me from trying to focus on Jacob and Marlena.  It’s a book filled with animal cruelty, human cruelty, murder, lust, explicit sexual encounters, and one circus catastrophe after another, and I thought all of that combined were just added for shock value and most of the times weren’t necessary to the overall plot of the book.  There’s no story or character development.  It’s incident after horrible incident and after a while I as a reader become numb and emotionless to all that was going on.

This is supposed to be a story about Jacob and Marlena and how they’re able to come together after all those obstacles aforementioned, and yet we don’t get any real dialogue between them so it’s hard to understand just how their relationship progresses from friendship to love.  Instead it’s brief conversations and simple explanations as to why they suddenly become attracted to one another.  Another beef I had is that August, Marlena’s husband, is so dastardly and cruel you don’t want to like him at all.  Yet, the author decides to give him a medical condition as an excuse for his behavior towards animals and humans alike.  Just make him bad, there’s no reason to justify his actions with illness.  You want him to be the villain so make him a villain, don’t make him into someone you kinda feel like you need feel sorry for.

This book flashes back from past to present, with a cranky old Jacob reliving his time with the Benzini Brothers while stuck in an assisted living home.  That would have been fine except I wish he was telling this story to someone, instead of reminiscing on his own.  There is a reason that ninety-something Jacob is in this book, and it becomes prevalent at the end, I just wish it was more of a “storytelling” prose instead of the clumsy first person narrative we get. 

The one bright spot in this book for me was Rosie, the charming pachyderm that wiggles into your heart after just one meeting.  I thought of all the characters, she was the most deftly explained and had the most emotion and development.  The scenes describing her performance with Marlena were the best part of the book for me.  There wasn’t much else I really liked about this book, but I did enjoy any scene that Rosie was in.  She was enchanting and if not for her, this book would’ve been one big bust for me.

After reading the book, I decided I’d watch the movie starring Reese Witherspoon.  I think I like the movie version better, even though I didn’t really love the movie either.  At least the characters of Jacob and Marlena talked to each other and had some real scenes together.  The animal cruelty and explict scenes were edited down to a PG-13 rating and it didn't feel like it was in your face the entire time (which is how I felt reading the book) and really only took up brief sections of the movie. 

I know a lot of people really loved this book, but it was not for me.  I never connected to any of the characters, the multiple shocking and horrible events thrust in throughout the book annoyed me, and I was frustrated that Jacob and Marlena’s story was never fully developed. I really wanted to like this book, and I really tried to like it, but for me, this book only gets about a C grade.  There’s a lot of harsh language, horrible animal cruelty, violence and explicitly graphic sexual encounters…this is not a book for teens.   Perhaps I’m just too picky, but Water For Elephants was a chore to get through and more often than not, I found myself hoping that this show would not go on.

Friday Book Report: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper is widely considered one of America’s first great novelists.  His story, Last of the Mohicans, part of The Leatherstocking Tales is quite possibly his most famous and most read.  Originally published in 1826, Last of the Mohicans has been a classic ever since.

Set in 1857 during the French and Indian wars, a young British officer is tasked with the safe delivery of Commander Munro’s daughters to Fort William Henry.  Munro is stationed at Fort William Henry and wants his daughter’s with him.  The British officer, Duncan Heyward employs an Indian by the name of Magua to guide them through the wilderness of New England.  Soon after they set off, we learn that Magua is not the trusting guide he seemed to be and he is using the Munro daughters as revenge against their father for a past wrong-doing. 

We meet Hawkeye, a white-man travelling with Mohican companions, Chingachgook and his son Uncas, and together with the young Heyward, they weave through the wilderness to protect the Munro sister’s from the clutches of the vengeful Magua.  This is a story about love and hate, survival and death, treachery and deliverance.  It’s an engrossing tale, not for the faint of heart, but definitely one worth reading to really appreciate just how American literature came to be. 

I really don’t know what to make of this book.  At times I really loved it, and then there are other times when I hated it.  Cooper, being a 19^th century writer ventures the route of extreme literal description and prose to tell his story which at times made me lose focus on what was actually going on.  There are times when his descriptions are beautifully done, but for the most part the verbal assault was too much for me to take.  The language is old, and I kept that in mind while reading, but there were several times when I just had to stop reading after a chapter to let what I just read sink in and really digest what was going on.  Cooper’s writing style and the dialogue he applies to this tale definitely took some getting used to.

I found I really enjoyed the character of Cora Munro, and wished very much that she was in this book more.  She was strong and brave and confident for a typical 19^th century heroine.  She wasn’t afraid of what happened to her, so long as her sister was safe.  An attitude like that in those days speaks of tremendous courage.  My only beef is that at times Cooper displays Cora’s strength of character, but later on condescends himself by describing her has gentle and tender.  I didn’t get that at all…ah well; the male brain of the 19^th century can’t make a woman look too strong-willed without some character defects…right?

I will say this book is non-stop from chapter to chapter.  Once you get into the meat of the story, the action hardly ever stops and Cooper sends the reader on quite a bloody journey.  There are a lot of battle scenes, and some really graphic descriptions (especially of the massacre at Fort William Henry – which actually happened) and definitely not to be read by anyone that isn’t a fan of bloody and horrific battles.   Some of those scenes were hard for me to get through, and I don’t know if all of the graphic descriptions were really necessary to the overall plot of the story, they definitely did make me perk up and pay attention to the gruesome accounts Cooper was telling. 

After I read the book, I decided I needed to watch the movie to compare and contrast the two mediums.  I found I liked the movie adaptation much more than I enjoyed the book.  While the movie veers off absolutely from the book, it appealed much more to my 21^st century mind.  Michael Mann (the director) took the plot of the book and made it his own, with a totally flip-flopped ending that I found much more pleasing.  Usually when a movie deviates from the original story I don’t like it, and most books are much better than their film counterparts, but this is one exception (to me at least).  If you’ve seen the movie but not the book (or vice versa) be prepared that the two are sort of the same, but essentially a different story with the same characters involved. 

This is considered a “classic” for a reason.  It depicts (in Cooper’s opinion) early America before the revolution and the relationship between Native American’s and the Europeans taking over the land.  There’s a little bit of history to be learned as some of the events actually did take place, such as the massacre at Fort William Henry and the scalping of Jane McCrea (her story comes much later, but is mentioned in Cooper’s footnotes) and I found I was actually looking up some of these historical events to learn more about them.  So, I guess the book taught me a little bit, which counts for something.  It’s hard to say I didn’t love a “classic”, but I didn’t love this book.  The relationships between all the main characters just weren’t developed enough for my taste.  The story is good (until the end, in my opinion) and the non-stop adventure and action is appealing, but the overuse of haughty language and confusing dialogue was too much for me to ignore.  I give this book a C+ grade, and recommend reading only to those die-hard literature fans that want to broaden their knowledge of early American novelists.  If you’re looking for pure entertainment, just watch the movie with Daniel Day Lewis.