2013 book 202

Jayne Anne Phillips' Quiet Dell
Phillips' latest--after Lark and Termite--is based on the true story of a family murdered by a con man in 1931. It starts off strong--the first quarter lets us get to know the family and a former lodger/family friend--but then things go off the rails a little when a journalist comes to write about the case and has some immediate love connection with the local banker. The whole thing was really bizarre and unnecessary, I thought. And it just gets really dull from there, with weirdly fake-old-fashioned-style dialogue and people traipsing around and nothing happening! Like, I did not care about the weird relationship between the journalist and the banker, and that's what the whole last 3/4 of the book is about. Plus, parts are from the POV of the youngest child's ghost, and . . . no. Even the section on the murderer's trial manages to be boring. I gave up reading it twice but figured I didn't have time to finish another book, so kept plugging away angrily at this one, wishing it was like 200 pages shorter. Side note: this book also has the most genteel description of anal sex that has ever been written. I'm not basing that on any kind of expertise on writings about anal sex, but on the extremely hilariously polite way it is described here. It was kind of amazing. Nothing could possibly ever top that. Still not enough to make me like this book, though. I feel like I've had this problem with books based on real events before--like authors get so caught up in trying to keep things authentic that the story suffers. I don't know, C?


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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in October.