Extraordinary and Wholly Entertaining: "Five-Carat Soul", by James McBride - Book Review

Somehow I passed over the hype around James McBride and his highly acclaimed The Good Lord Bird. I’m now completely on board the McBride train.  Five-Carat Soul is one of the most unique and charming books I’ve read. I can’t think of a similar style, and I loved it.

Five Carat-Soul is a compilation of stories, several tied together, all told with a strong depth of character and imagination. McBride’s stories are fun, and his characters are both strong and vulnerable in navigating their curious situations. In one series, we are introduced most delightfully to the kids that make up The Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone band of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Without affection, they refer to their town as The Bottom, and in The Bottom we get to know Ray-Ray, Goat, Sissie, Blub, and an ensemble of characters with yarns as told from one of their own. It’s a tough town with small kindnesses its greatest currency.

Five-Carat Soul
By James McBride

Abe Lincoln makes a couple of appearances; first as a young orphaned slave’s imagined father, then later as we witness the president in a quite intimate, vulnerable, and deeply human circumstance. “The Christmas Dance" is incredibly authentic and moving - it will make your heart swell. And my favorite collection of related stories just has to be "Mr. P and the Wind”. Here we better understand the Higher Order - the wild animals, here confined to a life in captivity, as related by the king of the jungle himself.  You’ll learn in the author’s note that McBride created these last stories after a disturbing visit to the zoo with his two nephews - what a creative and compelling way to turn something so appalling to them into something so magical. 

McBride is an incredible storyteller - completely unpredictable and original. McBride cleverly and sharply confronts our callousness; and he recognizes our flaws and dreams alike with wisdom and care. His attention, depth, and wit make this a fantastic read.

Published:    2017
Publisher:    Riverhead

Vickie’s rating:     5 stars

Intensely Intimate With “Thirteen Ways of Looking”, by Colum McCann - Book Review

Colum McCann is truly a master of his craft. This is my first read of McCann’s library of work, but his evocative nature begs further discovery. In the midst of writing Thirteen Ways of Looking, McCann himself was attacked while trying to help a woman who had been assaulted, after which he suffered a broken cheekbone and teeth. He writes in the book’s Author’s Note, “Sometimes it seems to me that we are writing our lives in advance, but at other times we can only look back. In the end, though, every word we write is autobiographical, perhaps most especially when we attempt to avoid the autobiographical”. When you read the book, you’ll understand how poignant this statement is.

Thirteen Ways of Looking includes a novella and three short stories. The title is based upon the poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens, of which McCann includes a stanza of the poem at the beginning of each section of the novella. The stories are quite different from one another, but the unifying theme is a strong sense of yearning and loneliness, vividly told.

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Young Skins, by Colin Barrett - Book Review

I hear a lot of people say they don’t care for short stories.  I never quite understood this. Short stories can be as beautifully written as a novel, with the added benefit of feeling accomplished - getting through a story in a short period of time. It’s perfect for those with short attention spans or who read multiple things at once. But that’s just me.

Young Skins is a collection of short stories and one novella. It’s the debut book from Irish writer Colin Barrett, and it’s completely absorbing. Barrett combines edgy and prosaic prose with lyrical descriptions of the stories’ backdrop, placing the reader in clear view. The title, Young Skins, refers to the 20- and 30-something year old lads as the protagonist of each tale. Most of these young men live in the small Irish town of Glanbeigh, rarely hold traditional jobs, and find themselves in and out of conflict - with the law, business dealings, friends, relationships and alcohol. They are gas station attendants, bouncers, fathers and criminals. There is a melancholy tone, and you can feel the gray clouds of Ireland hovering just overhead. Barrett ends each of his stories rather anticlimactically; and none with a fairly tale ending. 

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