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Title: The Turtle Warrior by Mary Relindes Ellis ISBN: 0-670-03265-4 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 15 January, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent debut novel
Comment: Mary Relindes Ellis has written a powerful story that's filled with a heart-wrenching and unforgettable way of life for a Midwestern family and their neighbors. But it was the first person narrative used by the different characters, along with multiple changes in the POV, that floored me. This writer's talent shines through with the ability to capture and constantly hold the reader's attention with this style of writing. It's a difficult task for the most seasoned of writers, but Ellis does this like it's old hat in her debut novel. I never once lost my train of thought with the frequent switching of narrative identity.
My favorite character in this book was not necessarily the main character. I enjoyed the neighbor, Ernie Marriseau. He was the epitome of a perfect husband and a wonderful person. Yet, like all of us, Ernie had his flaws too.
Ellis brings about the paranormal just when it fit perfectly into the story. I must admit that I greatly admire this author's talent. I couldn't put the book down because I didn't want to stop reading. I'm looking forward to her future novels. I feel that Ellis has created a new style of writing that will soon become like a trademark for her, immediately recognized by avid readers and fans alike.
It does the heart good to give a 5-star rating to a debut novel. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of THE TURTLE WARRIOR. It's a keeper.
Rating: 4
Summary: "The despair that destroys the conscious act of love"
Comment: My feelings about The Turtle Warrior are quite ambiguous. On the one hand Mary Relindes Ellis has provided us with a startlingly beautiful and devastatingly emotional piece of work. But, on the other hand, the novel suffers from a rather languid plot, and an almost funereal tone, which at times can make it a frustrating read. Ellis's writing style and her themes of family loyalty are very reminiscent of Michael Cunningham as she brings the tortured sufferings and dysfunctions of a small town family to life. Told from several different perspectives and also traversing almost forty years, The Turtle Warrior is essentially a devastating, but ultimately redemptive story of two brothers, their parents, and their loyal neighbours who farm in the beautiful, isolated country of Northern Wisconsin.
The elder brother James Lucas, a dead ringer for Elvis Presley with his "tight Levi's jeans and rockabilly boots" is packed off to the Vietnam War, by his hard drinking and abusive father. While the younger brother Bill is left with his father, John Lucas whose ugly, drunken acts of bullying and cruelty drive Billy to the edge. Bill, the warrior of the title fashions a shield from a giant turtle shell that he believes will keep him from harm. Billy's nine-year-old life revolves around a daily struggle to survive at school; the strained wait for his brother's letters, the fragile web of his mother's world, and Ernie and Rosemary, his two kind neighbours who adopt him in a time of need.
Ellis astonishingly evokes the horror and the waste of war not just with Jimmy's blood soaked and violent account of life on the frontlines in Vietnam, but back at home where the emotional casualties of mothers, brothers, friends and fathers are laid waste. When her son is reported as missing in action, Claire Lucas, distraught and hysterical, imagines "flying to the highlands in Vietnam, a frozen Wisconsin mother looking for her disappeared son." As the novel progresses all the characters gradually exercise their demons and lay their souls on the table. But the real strength of the novel is in Ellis's effortless description of nature's natural beauty. Whether it is the "the sun's rays filtering through the canopy of leaves and needles," "the smell of soil thawing," "the yolk colored light in the kitchen," or the "fields, woods, swamps, and sky of the Lucas farm." One can appreciate this book just for Ellis's remarkable lyricism alone.
Michael
Rating: 4
Summary: Reminding Us of War's Domino Effect
Comment: Although it moves slowly at times, overall, this is a good book. Ellis explores the devastating domino effect war has on those who fight, those who wait for their fighters to return, those who are on the periphery quietly observing lives torn apart by man's need to kill.
There is a definite bleak element to the setting. Yet Ellis tempers much of the cold climate and the dark days by having her characters find various kinds of beauty in their surroundings. It is how they manage to survive on hard-scrabble farms and in nightmare marriages. Her people are thoroughly believable.
This story will make you cry at times, but always it reminds how tough and adaptable is the human spirit.
We await her next novel!
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Title: The Amateur Marriage: A Novel by ANNE TYLER ISBN: 1400042070 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: A Hole in the Universe by Mary McGarry Morris ISBN: 0670032883 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 08 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Known World by Edward P. Jones ISBN: 0060557540 Publisher: Amistad Pub. Date: 14 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Going to Bend : A Novel by DIANE HAMMOND ISBN: 038550943X Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 20 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Way the Crow Flies: A Novel (Today Show Book Club #18) by Ann-Marie MacDonald ISBN: 0060578955 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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