The Lace Reader: A Novel
by Brunonia Barry
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Book Reviews of The Lace Reader: A Novel
Book Review: Possibly the most disappointing debut I've ever read.
Summary: 1 Stars
I was pretty excited to crack open this debut from new novelist Brunonia Barry, psyched about the creative concept behind the story as well as the Salem setting, but closed it feeling more disappointment and confusion than I can recall from any recent reading experience.
The very broken, damaged Towner Whitney (somehow also known as Sophya) has returned to Salem from years in California because her beloved great-aunt Eva has gone missing. That mystery is solved immediately - well, partially - upon Towner's return so it's not a focal point of the story, and the real mystery is Towner herself. The first would be why on earth the girl has two distinctly different names, but let's not belabor the point. No, the bigger mystery is what on earth is going on with this woman. From the flashes we're given it's clear that she's been hospitalized, most recently for a physical condition and in the more distant past, a murkier mental one. The story we're told is that she had a twin sister, Lyndley, from whom she was raised separately, who committed suicide years before. Their mother May lives like a hermit on one end of Yellow Dog Island, running a sort of underground railroad for domestic abuse victims, and May's sister Emma lives at the other end. It was Emma who raised Lyndley, having been given the child by her sister because she couldn't have any of her own. This turns out to be a tragic disaster, though, when Emma's lout of a husband, Cal, sexually abuses the girl. Worse, Cal is now a religious cult leader living nearby with his followers, and his tormenting of the Whitney family has never ended.
The Whitney women are Lace Readers, women with the gift to see prophecy through the patterns of lace. Supposedly, the author was inspired to write the novel by a dream she had about a vision read in lace, and it's an intriguing, incredibly creative idea. Amidst a beautiful, richly-illustrated setting, the story itself is dark with themes of insanity, sexual abuse and brutal domestic violence.
Sounds compelling, right? Well, it WOULD HAVE BEEN if not for the fact that at the end it COMPLETELY UNRAVELS! To my frustration I can't even say why, because it would be a spoiler. All I can say is that it goes off the deep end and not in a good way. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and although she could have possibly found a way to bring it all together and at least attempt to explain away the utterly ridiculous turn the story took, she doesn't even bother. From reviews on Amazon it appears that some people liked it regardless (maybe they didn't actually finish it?), and others came to the same befuddled conclusion as I. All I did when I reached the end was scratch my head and think, "But how did......" "How could this have happened if she......." "She didn't explain what....." "Who was the person on the....." and finally, "THIS MAKES NO FREAKING SENSE!!!"
Hell, I'm not even one of those people who's a firm stickler for details, and I'll take style over substance if the style is stylish enough, so that's testament to just how ridiculous and confusing I found this. For me personally it qualifies as THE WORST ENDING EVER. Not the concept, which as I said could have been compelling if the author had bothered to really tie it together, answer all the glaring questions and numerous outright impossibilities, but she does not. I actually shook my head in disbelief when I got to the end and realized that she apparently had no intention of doing so. I'm not such an idiot that I need everything explained to me at the end, mind you, but when an author spends 400 or so pages weaving what turns out to be almost a complete fabrication....YEAH, I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS!
How disappointing that a story with such wonderful potential ended up being almost a complete waste of time and money. Honestly, I was disgusted in a way I rarely am with books. I will never read anything by this author again.
Book Review: The Lace Reader is evocative evocative portrait of a place, and of a family, that readers will enjoy spending time with
Summary: 5 Stars
I confess that I have lived within a half-hour drive of Salem, Massachusetts, for seven years and have never stopped to visit the place. Friends' tales of hokey haunted houses, tourist trap souvenir shops and costumed "witches" were enough for me to steer clear of town. But this summer I may finally have found a reason to visit Salem: local author Brunonia Barry's captivating portrait of this historic harbor city.
As anyone who has studied early American history knows, of course, Salem's history is a notorious one. It's no coincidence that Barry sets her modern-day tale, with its convergence of mystical practices and troubled family history, in this town, whose history is similarly troubled and mystical.
Sophya "Towner" Whitney has come back home after spending the last 15 years in Southern California. Still healing from major surgery, she returns to Salem when her great-aunt Eva mysteriously disappears. Like Eva --- and virtually all the Whitney women --- Towner has the ability to "read" other people, to see their innermost thoughts. But this "gift" has also threatened to ruin Towner's life on more than one occasion, as her hallucinations and visions landed her in a psychiatric hospital, estranged her from her family and ruined her romantic relationships.
As soon as Towner returns to Salem, she feels Eva's presence strongly, so vividly that she's convinced Eva must be upstairs in the sprawling old Victorian mansion. But when the police discover Eva's body --- and when Eva's will reveals that she has left everything to Eva --- Towner begins to wonder whether Eva, or Eva's spirit, has brought her back to Salem for a reason.
Towner's reintroduction to her hometown is anything but easy. Her mother, May, who lives on (fictional) Yellow Dog Island where she shelters abused women and teaches them to make Ipswich lace, has grown increasingly eccentric and reclusive. Her attempts at dating a local cop who is investigating the disappearance of a pregnant teenager are awkward at best. And her interactions with her abusive uncle Cal, who has declared himself the leader of the so-called Calvinists, a vehemently anti-witch religious sect, are just as violent and threatening as they were in her youth. Worst of all, being in Salem again casts Towner's mind back to her twin sister Lyndley, whose death Towner never recovered from.
Brunonia Barry's debut novel is startlingly ambitious. Freely switching perspectives, shifting forward and back in time, and incorporating documents and evidence from Towner's past, the narrative echoes the complexities of Towner's own mind --- and of the intricate strands of the lace that has been at the center of so many generations of Whitney women. Part mystery and part romance, THE LACE READER is most of all an evocative portrait of a place, and of a family, that readers will enjoy spending time with. I suspect that other readers, like myself, will be so enchanted by Barry's book that they, too, will visit Salem for something richer than those tacky souvenir shops and haunted houses.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
Book Review: Seduced by a Concept, Disappointed by the Reality
Summary: 2 Stars
When I initially read the reviews of this book, I thought I had a real winner of a read here--old mystery, family drama, strong lead character, eccentric secondary characters, a hint of romance, all set in an historical city that just reeks of suspense. Then I read the book. Like that anticipation children experience before opening their Christmas gifts, this book left me sitting in my chair staring at the glowing reviews on the cover, thinking, "What?".
I know it's a bad sign when it takes me over a week to get into a book to the point where I desperately want to read it, to the exclusion of food. I finally decided to just keep plugging away until it was done. The writing is light & readable, the plot keeps you interested just long enough to be angry when all the action lurches suddenly into another odd angle, but I never got to the point where I really cared about any of the characters (initially I was intrigued by the missing great-aunt, but rapidly lost interest with all the trivial details about her and completely lost interest when the big "reason!" behind her disappearance was revealed). The lead character, Towner/Sophya is a whiny, self-indulgent, dork. Another sudden plot twist relating to her mental history from the perspective of her ex-high-school boyfriend and her family did not save her from the "loser" bin I had dumped her into. Rafferty, the lead detective on Great Aunt Eva's disappearance, was a terrible cop. No policeman I ever met could spend hours and hours and hours on a minor case that was supposedly solved, as well as attempting to romance the mentally-unstable heroine.
The tossed-in characters of Anna the Witch, Anya the future sister-in-law, Beezer the brother, and Rafferty's daughter just work to muddy the already obscure story. One minute Rafferty is trying to figure out why Tower/Sophya is the way she is, then he's off visiting a psychic witch who uses him to determine that another victim is dead, then the "dead" victim pops up out of nowhere, then Rafferty's taking Tower/Sophya out to dinner at a restaurant where her ex-high-school-boyfriend (who's involvement with her somehow led to his own mental demise, but we're never sure why)get into a fight with someone else, and so on, and so on.
This book is just such a mess of tangled plot devices, story twists, odd characters, and unlikable people that I only managed to finish it by trying to predict what weird and jerky plot twist would happen next. The fact that I finished it still surprises me. I was not happy to read a blurb on the last page in which the author gives us less-than-subtle hints about the upcoming sequel to this mushed-up mess. Needless to say, I will not be reading the sequel. Perhaps in a few years, when this author has had time to mature to the point where her stories are well-plotted and better written, I will attempt to read something by her again. There are hints of what could have been throughout the book, but hints do not make up a good novel.
Book Review: Great potential in the premise and atmosphere, but the execution falls flat. Not recommended
Summary: 3 Stars
All of the Whitney women can read the future in a piece of lace, but Towner hasn't read lace since her sister committed suicide and she was institutionalized. But Towner is confronted again by her prophetic past and convoluted family history when she returns home to Salem, Massachusetts after her great aunt Eva goes missing. This book has a promising premise of a complex family history, prophecies, and unreliable narrators; the setting is realistic and detailed, and Barry has a haunting narrative voice. However, a weak plot, constant head-hopping, and an unbelievable twist ending drag the book down to mere mediocrity. I expected better from this novel, and I don't recommend it.
The plot (which is quite difficult to summarize) didn't intrigue me when a friend recommended this book, but the atmosphere did. The book is chock full of family secrets and twisted genealogies, prophetic powers, and past trauma, and Barry writes it all in a haunting, lyrical voice. It's a shadowed story, rich with memory and detail, introverted and intensely personal. The Salem setting is integral to the story and adds realistic dimension; the characters are vivid (almost too vivid--their bright coloring is out of place in the dim hues of the rest of the book) and unrelenting forces in Towner's life. The protagonists--Towner, and a policeman investigating Eva's disappearance--provide different points of view and also conflicting information which casts the story in a shadow of doubt, leaving the reader to second guess the narratives and the facts.
The Lace Reader has all the potential to be an atmospheric, absorbing read--but it's not. The book is hampered by its execution. The plot moves slowly and stalls often, and it's hard to follow or care about a story where nothing is going on. The book has multiple narrators, but Barry doesn't move smoothly between them: instead, she switches erratically from first to third person, inserting journals and police reports as well as odd moments of omniscient narration, and these head-hops and narrative changes fragment the flow of the book and make it difficult to follow. Finally, the book has a twist ending--an ending that could be foreshadowed via the conflicting narrators, but is instead left unpredicted and unbelievable.
I expected better from this book--it has so much going for it, and I truly loved the atmosphere and the premise. With so much potential, it's disappointing to see the execution fall flat. The book feels unfinished: it wants editing to streamline and flesh out the plot, and intentional foreshadowing to integrate the twist ending. As it is, I just couldn't enjoy The Lace Reader and I don't recommend it. The potential is there, but it's undeveloped; the novel that remains is disappointing.
Book Review: Awesome literary debut! Poetic, mysterious.
Summary: 5 Stars
In the town of Salem, Massachusetts, innocent women needing to be controlled were once accused of witchcraft. Now Salem plays host to a group of women who openly parade around as witches and a whole tourist industry reenacts the past in broad daylight. A new religious group calling themselves the Calvinists goes about admonishing and threatening witches and unusual or strong women. Towner's great aunt is a lace reader, a woman who can read the future in lace. Her home and the lace reader group become a sanctuary for women escaping their abusive husbands. Together this circle of women find support and strength.
Towner comes back to town after her aunt Eva goes missing, embarking on a journey that puts her past and present life into perspective. She meets Rafferty, the detective intent on solving the case. Together, their perspectives create an aura of mystery to the events of both the past and present. Towner narrates the history of Salem, Salem's current life, her own personal history and her present in a unique pattern as finely interwoven as lace. Each chapter is prefaced by a quote from the Lace Reader's Guide written by Eva describing the art, history and technique of lace reading and the Ipswich lace makers. Towner's life is like the lace with fine threads all interwoven yet converging. The reader follows all the strands in her life, not as a straight direct kind of plot, but as different memories, some reliable and others imagined, all forming the uniqueness of a piece of art---the life of human being. Brunonia Barry's narrative presents a portrait of Towner not as an isolated separate individual but a person with whom other lives converge. Yellow Dog Island's circle of women reinforces this theme on the interconnectedness of individuals.
This novel was incredible. Brunonia Berry does deal with some hard issues like spousal abuse so if you are looking for a light, happy easy read, this is not a good choice. That warning being said, this novel was awesome! THE LACE READER inspires readers to follow with the imagination and go it where it leads. By the end, all the narrative threads and images add up to something spectacular and rich as past and present and landscape, history and the personal all combine. THE LACE READER is a novel built in layers and nuances like a person's life or like the memories in the mind or like the depths of psychology. THE LACE READER has some surprising and poetic twists towards the end. There is no guaranteed happy easily resolved ending --- but the ending has it's own kind of satisfying richness that combines deep emotion, sadness, even trauma into a new beginning and a new sense of freedom. Beautifully poetic!