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Title: A Piece of My Heart by Richard Ford ISBN: 0-394-72914-5 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 May, 1985 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Brilliant Tour De Force
Comment: Richard Ford's first book, A Piece Of My Heart, scored big with reviewers across the country, but has largely been ignored by the reading public.
All the more a pity, since this book deserves a large readership, perhaps even as much or more so than The Sportswriter or Independence Day. If there is a fault with this book, it is that it flows too easily. It is the kind of work that can be devoured in a few hours. It reads so smoothly that it's rich detail can be easily overlooked.
The cinematic quality of this work cannot be understated. The sometimes stark, sometimes lush and haunting landscapes of this novel are so rich in description that they are seen effortlessly and because they flow so easily, the unwary reader is tempted to speed ahead like a traveler on the interstate, driving at breakneck speed through breathtakingly beautiful scenery.
Ford's characters are quirky and so three dimensional that they rise up before the reader with startlingly familiarity. I suspect that Ford loses many of his more urbane readers with the grittiness of these characters--their down home rustication and the sense of danger inherent in their ferocious living of lives from moment to moment.
For those who plunge into this work with abandon (as I did on my first reading), one warning: slow down. Savor the power of each scene. Don't go crashing through from page to page like a tourist in New York with one day to see the Metropolitan Museum. Enjoy each wonderfully crafted scene and avoid the temptation to read through at breakneck speed.
The amazing juxtaposition of whimsy, darkness and doom are quite extraordinary in this work. The plot, ostensibly, revolves around the actions of Robard Hewes, an uneducated but shrewdly obsessed and compulsive character who drives from his dusty desert home in California to his past in Mississippi in pursuit of Buena, a wanton married woman whose siren call is enough to overwhelm Robard with an inexplicable burning desire.
Sam Newell is Hewes opposite. Newell, a severely depressed man down from Chicago on the suggestion of his lover for some ill-advised convalescence as a guest at her grandfather's island hunting camp, is filled with self loathing and unintentionally invites the scorn of almost everyone he encounters. Newell, on the verge of commencing practice as a lawyer has broken down and drifts rudderless throughout the action of this work. Nevertheless, he is an important character and his short musings on his childhood are remarkably evocative and superb and this along with the stark nature of his intellect give insight into the workings of Ford's mind and the detached alienated characters that evolve in his later works.
Mark Lamb (the grandfather), his wife, and TVA (his cook and handyman), constitute an extraordinarily quirky and wonderfully drawn backdrop for a good part of the action in this novel. Lamb is one of the most endearingly cranky old men you will run across in any short novel. The odd domestic scenes that take place on the island are redolent with humor and are brilliantly drawn.
I cannot recomment A Piece Of My Heart too highly. It is a must read for those who appreciate good literature.
Rating: 3
Summary: Well-written, interesting characters, no sense of urgency
Comment: I really wanted to like this book. It has a lot going for it: two troubled main characters, an intriguing setting (an island on the Mississippi River), some sex, a crotchety old man, and some of the best descriptions of a place you'll ever read. Ford is definitely a writer of power. I felt the importance of the setting in his detailed attention to every tree and rut in the road, yet I couldn't find a strong motivation for the two characters to be there. Robard Hewes is a lost soul, similar to other Ford characters (a lot like Quinn in *The Ultimate Good Luck*, but less self-confident) who goes south for all the wrong reasons. Robard I can sort of understand, but Sam Newel, the law student from Chicago searching for meaning in his life so he doesn't become like his father, just doesn't fit, and once he arrives on the island, he doesn't really DO much, except go on a fateful fishing excursion with the crusty old Mr. Lamb. I enjoyed reading it, but I'd probably not read it again. A little more focus would've greatly improved this first book by a wonderful writer. It should be read by all first time novelists to see how well setting and characterization can be done (and also to see how much a writer learns in comparison to his later work).
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Title: The Ultimate Good Luck by Richard Ford ISBN: 0394750896 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 May, 1987 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: A Multitude of Sins by Richard Ford ISBN: 037572656X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Rock Springs by Richard Ford ISBN: 0394757009 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 August, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Women with Men : Three Stories by Richard Ford ISBN: 0679776680 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Wildlife by Richard Ford ISBN: 0679734473 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 04 June, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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