The Lace Reader: A Novel
by Brunonia Barry
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Book Reviews of The Lace Reader: A Novel
Book Review: Buy this book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Brunonia Barry's The Lace Reader is a novel that delves into so many realms, it is hard to know where to start. The first chapter introduces us to Towner Whitney, one of a long line of Whitney women who have been labeled "quirky" by the other inhabitants of Salem. The chapter opens:
"My name is Towner Whitney. No, that's not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time.
I am a crazy woman.... That last part is true."
It is an appropriate opening for the book, for this is a book of secrets, of family lies and of history; both familial history and geographic history, as we are given some background of the town of Salem and the events that created it.
Towner comes from a long line of "readers," women who can read you past, present and future in lace. There is a specific process to the reading of lace, which is explained throughout the book. Towner has given up lace reading after the death of her sister and the subsequent depression that forced Towner to escape Salem and move to California, the farthest place she can escape to in her mind. She is brought back to Salem after the death of her great-aunt, where she begins to discover that everything about her past may or may not be as she remembers it.
This is an amazing debut novel. Barry interweaves so many plot threads, it's as if she is creating lace out of her own story. The plot moves along nicely, and Barry gives you just enough of the characters' histories throughout the story that you don't feel like you are being weighed down by their backgrounds. The characters are believable and well-rounded. Never did I feel that she was stretching the suspension of disbelief to make them seem real. I could picture walking the streets of Salem, and meeting these people downtown.
I think I've been a little bit lucky, in that I've been to Salem on two occasions now, so I'm familiar with the surroundings of the story. While some of the places are fictitious, Barry has created a most accurate view of present-day Salem. The city itself is just as much a character in the book as its inhabitants. Barry has set her story in the mid-90s, before Salem became too much of a tourist destination. It was just coming into it's own, and Barry captures the essence of city perfectly.
I think that Brunonia Barry may have something of a witch in her. The spell that she creates with this story was mesmerizing. I couldn't put the book down! Luckily I was traveling when I read it, so was able to finish the book one day. I'm anxiously looking forward to the magic that she will create with her next book.
Book Review: As complex and beautiful as lace itself...
Summary: 4 Stars
It isn't often upon finishing a book that I want to turn back to the beginning and immediately read it again. If I hadn't finished this book at 4:00 AM yesterday, I probably would have done exactly that.
Years ago, after the death of her twin, Towner Whitney fled Salem, Massachusetts, for Southern California ("which was as far as I could go without falling off the end of the earth," as she puts it). When her aunt Eva disappears, her brother asks that she come home. Upon her return to Salem, Towner sets up residence in her missing aunt's house rather than stay with her agoraphobic mother May on the offshore island where she was raised.
As Towner reacquaints herself with the environs and residents of her childhood home, she sees ghosts and memories everywhere; some are comfortable and sweet, but most are disturbing at best. She flinches from these memories while at the same time doing her best to confront them, which includes facing not only her jilted high school sweetheart but her former Uncle Cal, now the leader of a radically fundamentalist Christian sect determined to save the soul of the witches of Salem, which in his opinion includes the Whitney women: May, with her island sanctuary for battered and abused women and their children; the missing Great Aunt Eva, who read fortunes in the intricacies of a lace panel; and Towner herself, gifted with the ability to hear thoughts in the minds of those around her.
Brunonia Barry has written a complex and complicated story, weaving bits of memory with pieces of the present as she switches us from Towner's memories to her point of view, to Detective Rafferty's perspective as he investigates Eva's disappearance and becomes involved with Towner while struggling with his own demons, and back again, with occasional side jaunts to see through someone else's eyes. No one, it seems, has the whole story, and some of what is known may not even be truth.
The Lace Reader is a lovely novel, rich with subtext, full of hints, revealing nothing until the final pages. If I have a single quibble, it's that too little of Detective Rafferty's backstory is revealed. Although we can speculate on his reasons for joining the ranks of Salem's law enforcement, we have nothing truly concrete. But then again, I read the majority of this novel through a night of insomnia and may have missed a few things along the way.
Regardless, The Lace Reader is beautifully written and one of the better books I've read in recent years. Highly recommended, and an excellent choice for any book club to read and discuss.
Book Review: Well-paced psychological thriller
Summary: 4 Stars
Brunonia Barry's first adult novel, "The Lace Reader", is a generally well-paced and beguiling tale, set in a somewhat fictional version of the author's home town of Salem, Massachusetts. Barry's intimate knowledge of the town and its history has enabled her to blend historical events and the town's present day tourist trappings with a potent fictional element, creating an authoritative-seeming exposition of divination through lace-reading, attitudes to witchcraft, religious cults, traumatic loss, familial abuse, tea-rooms, lobster fishing and many other quotidian aspects of life in small town New England.
The book is, in fact, a quirky mix of many things but it is probably best described as a modern-day Gothic novel; a psychological supernatural thriller cum romance cum mystery tale that is both gripping and enthralling almost throughout. It contains some highly original ideas and is, by and large, exceptionally well executed. There are, however, some things that do not run altogether perfectly. The most glaring misjudgement to my mind are the sudden, unexpected and confusing shifts in the narrative point of view, jumping from a first person perspective in the first half of the book into a detached third-person view point and then back and forth between the two. As a device to shift the perspective (and therefore the interpretation of events) this can often be effective in psychological thrillers, especially as the final denouement approaches. Here no such shift occurs and I for one was left wondering quite why the author had chosen to do things this way. Rather than bring a differing view into focus, the change largely seems only to disturb the flow and makes the book feel to be rambling a little. The denouement, when it arrives, has been largely telegraphed all along -- although well and subtly so, as these things should properly be.
My second gripe is that there are a couple of moments when Brunonia Barry feels to have become carried away with the highly cinematic elements of her story and, as a consequence, has fallen back into Hollywood cliché -- not in the way she writes per se so much as in what she portrays and the way events unfold. I'm perfectly happy to accept these failings as really nothing more than minor lapses, though, and there is nothing that need deter anyone from trying this book; you'll know within a sentence or two whether or not this book is for you.
Book Review: A novel that will be hard to forget
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Sandie Kirkland for RebeccasReads (12/08)
Salem, Massachusetts is the home of the Whitney family. Whitney women are known for their strength, their eccentricity and their ability to read the future in lace. There is Eva, the matriarch, who lives in Salem, reads lace and runs a tearoom. May, her stepdaughter, is an agrophobic who lives on an island in the harbour, where she has devoted her life to helping battered women, many of whom live there while putting their lives back together. Emma, Eva's daughter, also lives on the island, blinded and brain-damaged after a beating by her husband, Cal. May's daughters were twin girls, Towner and Lyndley. Lyndley committed suicide when she was seventeen and Towner left town, seeking a new life.
As the story opens, Eva has gone missing and Towner returns home, drawn by this family crisis. Towner seems to be the catalyst that causes old relationships and secrets to reemerge. Cal Boynton is back in town where he has reinvented himself as a religious leader of a cult-like following. A young girl, Angela Rickey, who is pregnant with Cal's child, also disappears. Towner's old love, Jack, is still in town and anxious to resume their relationship. In addition, a town policeman, Rafferty, also falls in love with Towner. Towner starts to untangle the mysteries that have haunted her life. Why did her twin commit suicide in front of her and Jack? What is the fixation that Cal has with the Whitney women? Towner slowly reveals the truth, sometimes reading lace to find patterns. The book rises to a page-turning climax where the truth that has formed this family is finally revealed.
The Lace Reader is a compelling and satisfying read. It explores the issues of sexual and physical abuse. The mindset of those who enter cults is investigated. Suicide and mental illness are other themes, along with lost love and the yearning to hide in the past. While it covers depressing material, the book is not a depressing one overall. Rather, it leaves the reader with a message of hope and the realization that the truth must be faced in order to lose its power to skew lives. Not easily forgotten, this book is recommended for all fiction readers.
Book Review: Ultimately, a well-written disappointment
Summary: 3 Stars
Towner Whitney, born Sophya, left her home in Salem, MA, fifteen years ago, after her twin sister committed suicide upon discovery of something in the lace. When her Aunt Eva turns up missing, the somewhat unhinged and unreliable Towner realizes she must go back to find out what happened and ends up confronting many of her demons from the past.
That is only a brief synopsis which encapsulates very little of the book. It's hard to summarize without giving anything away. I had very little idea of what would happen going into the book and I think it's better experienced that way. Then again, I think most books are best experienced without much plot knowledge, only enough of a hint to get whether or not I'll like it. So this one isn't an exception to my rule.
For the most part, I really enjoyed The Lace Reader. The plot had me very interested and I sped through the book. I liked piecing together Towner's past and the different viewpoints the author offered - a bit from her journals and Rafferty's point of view. I also really liked Rafferty and found him an engaging secondary character; he's very different from Towner and it's refreshing. The atmosphere of Salem was enchanting and rings true with my visit there, backed up by assertions from others who have been to or lived in Salem. It adds another level of enchantment to the book.
But then, the ending happened. I hate to discuss spoilers in my review, so I won't, but I will say that despite knowing that Towner was an unreliable narrator from the beginning, I just have too much trouble reconciling the rest of the book with its conclusions. I've looked through the book several times since finishing and I stand by my assertion that there wasn't enough groundwork. Then again, I hate abrupt plot twists like this one, so perhaps this is just my personal taste, as most other people seem to love the book whole-heartedly.
So I can't recommend this book entirely. I found it engrossing throughout and a great read, but I was left disappointed. I have promised a few people this book as a loan already and I will be interested to see whether they agree with me or with the masses of people who adore this book.