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Deconstructing Plot with Alan Brenham’s Price of Justice

November 18, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Aristotle would have loved detective novels. He considered a fine-tuned plot more important than characterization. Gustav Freytag, father of the dramatic pyramid would also appreciate the way most modern detective novels make use of his five-part model (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement). Because I write literary fiction, plot is something I sometimes fail at, so I looked closely at Price of Justice by Alan Brenham to see what I could learn.

Exposition

To start a good book, the writer must clue the reader in to what is happening. As this ground situation is set, every detail that will be important throughout the rest of the book is introduced. And like Chekhov’s gun (the idea that a gun introduced in the first act must go off) all the details that are introduced should be important.

Price of Justice is told from two main points of view, Detective Scarsdale’s and Dani Mueller’s. Both have good reason to hate sex offenders. Scarsdale is recovering from losing a case against one and Mueller has a dark secret involving the man who raped and killed her daughter. Brenham expertly outlines the character’s conflicts and all the details readers need to know to navigate the twists and turns of the tightly-woven plot.

Rising Action

Once the reader gets his or her bearings in the fictional world, it’s time to add in complicating details and plot points. And Brenham escalates the action with all kinds of increasingly tense plot complications. These incidents (ranging from workplace politics to a break-in) are closely related to the ground situation. They add richness to the world while propelling the reader through the story.

Climax

This is the point in Freytag’s pyramid where the tension is supposed to be at its height. Although the details add up nicely, Chekhov’s gun goes off, and Brenham does a good job of keeping the story on theme, by the time the climax finally rolled around, I was more than ready for it. There had been so much heavy action leading up to this moment that I wanted even more from the big moment. Instead the climax felt a bit too easy.

Falling Action and Dénouement

Price of Justice is a modern novel, and as such it doesn’t have much action after the climax. Brenham intentionally leaves a few questions unanswered, but the ending is satisfactory.

Characterization

Detective novels on the whole are something I very much enjoy reading for fun. But they often lack the character development that I love. I appreciated that Brenham created more complexity than average in Dani Mueller’s background. Her motivations were unflinchingly straightforward, but the unusual nature of her background allowed for some unexpected turns as the plot unfolded.

Price of Justice is set in Austin, TX, a city I know and love, and I enjoyed how Brenham also used the city as a character.

What I learned from looking closely at the plotting of this book is that it is possible to write much more tension into a book than I usually feel comfortable doing. I need to realize that when I feel anxious writing something, that is not a reason to flinch. Instead it is a reason to follow that feeling and see what I can do to deepen the reader’s experience. I will likely always be a literary writer—mucking around in my character’s psyches instead of their actions, but that’s no excuse for letting the tension in my books lag.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Price of Justice from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Outside the Narrator’s Madness with Love by Péter Nádas

November 11, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Some writers have the power to immerse the reader in a world so forcefully that your emotions are surrendered to them and your wellbeing is completely at their mercy. That is the experience I was hoping for Love by Péter Nádas.

I picked this book up because I deeply enjoyed A Book of Memories, my next book is about love (so I’m reading a lot about it), and it’s a novella, a form I adore. Love wants to immerse the reader in its world—the first line is dialogue, “’Gimme a pillow’” and immediately you are inside this moment in a relationship where they are about to have sex and then he will leave her. It’s a tantalizing cliff and at first I enjoyed watching from the edge of my seat.

Overlapping Time

Early on, Nádas describes the scene in a series of staccato sentences that portray each moment of action in a way that would make any writing teacher cringe (though the influence of Proust is strong). Except that it works. Something about the way the tense shifts between sentences and he jumps from sight to sight and back again makes you feel as though you are present in the room for a familiar scene that has been played out many times.

“At the table I was sitting in the armchair, half naked. All the paraphernalia on the table. A pack of cigarettes. Grass in a small plastic bag. Scissors, matches. A clean sheet of paper. She takes a cigarette out of the pack, then a matchstick from the matchbox. With the match she scoops out the tobacco, careful not to graze the fine paper shell of the cigarette. I am not leaning back. My shirt is on the backrest of the armchair, her green dress spread out over my shirt. She likes to walk around naked; it’s hot. The tobacco is spilled out on the sheet of paper. Her breasts tremble imperceptibly, following with a slight delay the rhythm of her movements…”

Nádas later recreates snippets of this moment so that you feel stranded in a series of overlapping moments. You feel like you are watching many versions of the same scene as it has happened over and over and the writer has overlapped them to show how the relationship is suspended in one place. It’s amazing.

Show Don’t Tell

But then the book changes. As the narrator is mired inside this moment, he starts to go mad. The luscious repetition that felt like it was describing a state of being becomes mired in its own inability to move forward. The narrator is standing in the middle of the room and he feels the draw of jumping off the balcony and he is thirsty. Time passes or does not pass. And we are entirely in the narrator’s head.

“If, then, I exist only as a fragment of my former, whole self, but this fragment now seems to be between my two potential human capacities. Where? Where my story is stripped down to its bare essentials: between existence and nonexistence. That’s where I am conceptually…”

The passage was intellectually interesting, but it left me cold emotionally. Which was weird in the middle of this tortured moment in a love affair. Here’s how António Lobo Antunes shows stillness:

“Agitated on the inside by disgust but with nothing showing in their immobile features, absolutely still, as unmoving as those of landscapes, of photographs, of summer sunsets, nothing showing in their ever-horizontal features, decomposing silently in the Formica chairs.”

Rather than thinking words like “exist” and “capacities,” Antunes uses emotive words like “agitated,” “disgust,” and “decomposing.” Okay, that last one may not be emotive but it surely is evocative. I wanted badly for Nádas to get out of his head and let me experience the moment. But maybe that’s why the narrator was mired in his situation in the first place. But I tired of standing at the edge of the cliff with him.

Conclusion

This book taught me a lot of things. First, though I grew up in an intellectual household and often revert to a thinking mode of speech, what has the power to move me is emotion and I should be using more of that in my writing. Second, just because I like a writer does not mean I will like all of their work. And third, it’s time to start looking within when writing my next book. The sources of inspiration are endless, but I know what I want and what I need and the time to start working is now.

Happy NaNoWriMo! Are you balancing inspiration and creation better than I am?

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Love from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

The Audacity of Obama’s Hope

November 5, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Four years ago, the United States elected a different kind of president. We chose a man who asked intelligent questions instead of giving us pat answers. We selected someone who asked us to live up to our responsibilities instead of telling us how the world had wronged us. Did we stretch too far? Tomorrow’s election (and the likely delayed results) will provide an answer about our tolerance for growth and big changes.

This weekend I read The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama to do my own gut-check.

On the Stump

The Audacity of Hope often reads like one of Obama’s stump speeches. What that tells me, though, is rather than being overly rehearsed and regurgitated, Obama’s thoughts are deeply held and personal. When he talks about the “common set of values that bind us together despite our differences,” I believe he believes what he is saying and that “we are becoming more, not less, alike.”

Because Obama’s method of speech and writing are deliberative and broad, I can see where the electorate has grown impatient. It’s a shameful fact that we beg to be spoon-fed information. How we came to be this way is something else Obama explores intelligently and in-depth. Even if he refuses to pander to it—something that may be his downfall.

Generation of Broken Promises

This is a phrase that Obama used when talking about the inner city and what life is like for people who live there. But it applies to America at large. We have hungered for so long to have things get better that we’ll grasp at any easy solution—even if it’s the wrong one. Like Mitt Romney telling us he has a plan to fix our economy—a plan he won’t reveal.

My husband wrote to me, “I survived eight years of Bush.” And that’s what it was. While he told us he was helping us, Bush and his cronies did everything they could to help themselves and not their constituents.

President Obama has tried to change this. On the campaign trail, “I tried my best to keep my mouth shut and hear what [my constituents] had to say.” By being open to those he was leading, he saw truths that other politicians miss, like “just how modest people’s hopes were.”

“If you are paying attention, each successive year will make you more intimately acquainted with your flaws.” — Barack Obama

I believed President Obama at the Democratic National Convention when he said there was no greater critic of his administration than he. I wish he could let us into that evaluation process a little so we could see the changes he plans to make. I believe in his values and know he will make the right decision. But our trust has been so abused by others that it’s hard for many Americans to know where to turn and I’m afraid Romney looks like the easy answer.

Fixing a Broken System

“In the world’s greatest deliberative body, no one is listening.” — Barack Obama regarding the Senate

One of my greatest frustrations with the past four years has been President’ Obama’s inability to change Washington. In The Audacity of Hope, he acknowledges what a frequent desire that is among Americans. He describes many of the problems with the system and how they came to be that way. He writes about ways the system could be improved, even though he has not been able to enact them while in office. The history is deep, though, and I can see that the system is even less flexible than I had hoped.

My Vote

What I learned from reading this book is that Obama is the real deal. He believes what he writes and says. His hope is audacious enough to have faith in us and in our process. I hope we have the same faith and trust in him. We would all be better off if we lived up to his expectations. Obama understands “there is no great reward in store for those who speak the truth” and he speaks it anyway. Because it’s the right thing to do.

“If we aren’t willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren’t willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.” — Barack Obama

I hope when the tally comes through that we Americans had the faith in ourselves to re-elect President Obama. He has not promised us the easy road and he has not been able to deliver quick solutions, but it takes courage to make the kinds of big changes we need and leaders like President Obama don’t come around very often.

“A government that truly represents these Americans—that truly serves these Americans—will require a different kind of politics. That politics will need to reflect our lives as they are actually lived. It won’t be prepackaged, ready to pull off the shelf. It will have to be constructed from the best of our traditions and will have to account for the darker aspects of our past. We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we will need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break.” — Barack Obama

Disagree with me? I have a post coming out tomorrow on The Restless Nest about how I feel about political discourse. I’d love to have a thoughtful conversation.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Chocolat, the Crone, and a Life Well-Lived

November 3, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Some nights I miss Baba more than I can bear. I’m surrounded by wonderful memories of my grandmother and I know she was ready to die. Still, although it’s been nearly two years since she passed away, the grief sneaks up on me. This happened recently as I encountered the character of Armande Voizin while reading Chocolat by Joanne Harris. This review contains spoilers…

Every Character Has an Arc

That every character should have an arc is common knowledge among writers—whether they abide by the rule or not. One of the things I love about Armande is that we encounter her at the end of hers.

I’ve written before of AS Byatt’s quote, “There is always an old woman ahead of you on a journey, and there is always an old woman behind you too, and they are not always the same.” Armande answered the question of primary motivation ages ago and each of the questions she is faced with throughout Chocolat is decided based on the person she became.

The Wisdom of Experience

Armande is the crone of fairytale and like any old witch, she developed a lot of wisdom along the way. She imparts this wisdom in gentle ways throughout the novel.

The wild Vianne Rocher who blows in on the wind and follows her own whims is in many ways a younger version of Armande. Vianne faces much opposition in the town, but the presence of Armande—who recognizes Vianne as a witch and proclaims herself one—shows Vianne and the reader that another life is possible even in the strict confines of a small town.

The wisdom Armande had to impart to me was acceptance. Like Baba, she lived a long, rich life, and at the end of the story, she is ready to leave the earth. Armande prepares a final feast (like my grandmother, Armande is diabetic and she has gone off her insulin), as a celebration. She is not coy about her purposes, but she does not tell everyone. She only tells those who have the life experience to understand her—Vianne who saw her mother’s health decline and Guillaume who let his ailing dog hold on too long.

Reading about this final banquet, I see how it could have been for Baba. The last time I saw her was at a weekend of parties with the whole family in attendance. It was my grandfather’s 95^th birthday and their 65^th wedding anniversary. She whispered something in my husband’s ear and I waved goodbye at the door. The grandkids gathered at the airport and toasted family and life.

Though I am grateful for every moment Baba was part of my life, most days I try to forget the last time I spoke with her. It was a few months later on my birthday and my aunt helped her make the call. We knew she was dying and it was wonderful to hear her voice, but it was awful to hear her incoherence and to know how long her body had been failing. She wasn’t the person I remembered and it scared me how scared she sounded.

Rewriting an Ending

Most of us do not get to control the terms of our own exit, but I’m rewriting the story of Baba’s death. After that weekend of parties, she went home and ate a gallon of butter pecan ice cream. She snuggled up with her husband of 65 years and said goodnight one last time.

It’s an imperfect scenario. She would have missed the birth of her first great-grandchild—an occasion I’m certain gave her great joy—but she also would have been at peace. Maybe part of Armande’s wisdom of acceptance is that life is full of tradeoffs.

I am looking to Baba’s memory tonight for guidance on a comparatively trivial matter. I sit in my office surrounded by things that were once hers sipping wine from a glass that belonged to her mother. Maybe it’s time for me to take all the wisdom she tried to share over the years and find my own story arc.

Good night, Baba.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Chocolat from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Haunted by Pedro Páramo

October 31, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Pedro Páramo is the spookiest book I’ve read in a long time. Juan Rulfo created a world where the living interact with the dead in such a way that the reader can’t immediately be certain who is living and who is dead, which creates this suspicion that everyone is dead. Because the stories told about the lives of the dead are much more detailed and intricate than the stories of Juan Preciado, who is alive at the start of the book, the world of the dead seems more real than the world of the living.

Spoilers Ahead

Rulfo does not immediately tell the reader that most of the ghosts Juan encounters are in fact dead, but on some level you can tell. Simple lines like “I saw a woman wrapped in her rebozo; she disappeared as if she had never existed” are easily read over and dismissed. Eduviges has had word from Juan’s dead mother that he is coming—perhaps she is sensitive to the spirit world. Later, Eduviges tells Juan that Abundio with whom he traveled to town is in fact long dead. Then Damiana says Eduviges is long dead.

My mind started stripping away the stories I had rationalized for myself and I started to see everyone as dead. I was so immersed in this novel that when a mentally ill woman perched next to me on a bench at lunch, I kept looking in her eyes to see if she was a ghost.

Layering Experiences

The way Rulfo intersperses short sections with glimpses of characters interacting with Juan and then follows up with a second more detailed section (sometimes then a third or even fourth) of the character in the past makes these spirits feel as alive as Juan Preciado is at the beginning of the novel. When Juan dies midway through the novel, I already felt like the majority of the story was in the flashbacks. I felt like I had been gradually led deeper and deeper into the spirit world until I was left there like Juan was.

I loved this book. I can learn a lot from the way Rulfo managed information so that he only revealed what was absolutely necessary to draw me further into the story. The mystery and suspense he created by mentioning Pedro Páramo’s name, then mentioning he was Abundio’s father also, “living bile,” and then later telling us he was dead. I hadn’t met this character and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but he was immensely intriguing. I wondered if I could do something similar with Jacek in Polska, 1994 by building a reputation first and then introducing the character. I decided not to go that particular direction, but it definitely shapes a reader’s expectations. Every action Pedro Páramo took was tainted for me by Abundio’s preconceptions. Not that his actions, except in the case of his wife Susana were at all laudable.

Atmosphere and Mood

I also like what Rulfo did with the atmospheric descriptions. From walls “stained red by the setting sun” to lines like “February when the mornings are filled with wind and sparrows and blue light,” the description creates the mood of the story and impacts the reader’s understanding of it. The detail of the red stains recurs as Eduviges says goodbye to her sister who is also stained “by the dusk filling the sky with blood.” Whereas when Dorotea remembers the “February wind that used to snap the fern stalks before they died from neglect” and the “little whirlwinds [that swept] across the earth,” it feels like the air in Comala is still and has been for some time. There is no cleansing wind. There is no blue light. There is only heat and stillness and death. In annotating the book, it was actually difficult to decide which atmospheric details to choose because they were everywhere. However, Rulfo’s details blended so seamlessly into the story that they were at once omnipresent and sitting comfortably in the background.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Pedro Páramo from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.