David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "tragedy"
THE NIGHT COUNTRY
THE LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER is one of my favorite books. The Red Lobster is closing in this New England town and O'Nan follows the various characters around. Sounds dull, right? This is fiction, but these people sound a lot more real than those in most novels. Ever since I've been looking forward to his next project.
That's not the case with THE NIGHT COUNTRY, which was first published in 2003. I started reading it once before but had trouble following what was happening and set it aside. It's about a car accident. A police officer tries to stop a car full of teenagers, and they wind up wrapped around a tree. Three of them died, two survived. The police officer, Brooks, can't forgive himself. His work suffers, his wife leaves him. One of the survivors, Tim, lost his girlfriend, Danielle, in the accident. He's in the back seat making out with Danielle when the accident happens, but he blames himself, too. He kept telling the driver, Toe, to slow down, but he wouldn't. Toe, Marco and Danielle die. Brooks pulls Tim out of the car. Kyle lives, but he's brain damaged. Tim and Kyle still work in the local supermarket a year after the accident. Toe, Danielle, and Marco return a year later as ghosts, on Halloween yet, to torment Brooks.
Marco is telling the story for the most part, but O'Nan will switch narrators in the middle of the page sometimes or he'll flashback without setting it up. Part of the problem is that Marco is a flat character. He might as well not be in the story. It took me a while to realize it was him. There's also an element of suspense. Why do they (except for Danielle) hate Brooks when he saved Tim? It's not to hard to figure out, and I wasn't wrong.
Another element of suspense is that Tim is planning something after he gets off work. He mentions Dylan Klebald, but doing what he did doesn't really make sense. We know what he's going to do. So does Brooks, and he's constantly checking up on Tim.
Toe also has these two buddies, Greg and Travis, who want to get even with Brooks by vandalizing his house. They might as well be Beavis and Butthead. If anybody was to blame it was Toe for trying to outrun a cop.
In essence the book isn't up to O'Nan's standards. The ghost thing is hard to bring off. There's not enough of a reason for them to come back, other than that Brooks never told the whole story. His life has already been ruined due to guilt. It's like kicking a dog for peeing on the floor when you haven't trained it not to.
That's not the case with THE NIGHT COUNTRY, which was first published in 2003. I started reading it once before but had trouble following what was happening and set it aside. It's about a car accident. A police officer tries to stop a car full of teenagers, and they wind up wrapped around a tree. Three of them died, two survived. The police officer, Brooks, can't forgive himself. His work suffers, his wife leaves him. One of the survivors, Tim, lost his girlfriend, Danielle, in the accident. He's in the back seat making out with Danielle when the accident happens, but he blames himself, too. He kept telling the driver, Toe, to slow down, but he wouldn't. Toe, Marco and Danielle die. Brooks pulls Tim out of the car. Kyle lives, but he's brain damaged. Tim and Kyle still work in the local supermarket a year after the accident. Toe, Danielle, and Marco return a year later as ghosts, on Halloween yet, to torment Brooks.
Marco is telling the story for the most part, but O'Nan will switch narrators in the middle of the page sometimes or he'll flashback without setting it up. Part of the problem is that Marco is a flat character. He might as well not be in the story. It took me a while to realize it was him. There's also an element of suspense. Why do they (except for Danielle) hate Brooks when he saved Tim? It's not to hard to figure out, and I wasn't wrong.
Another element of suspense is that Tim is planning something after he gets off work. He mentions Dylan Klebald, but doing what he did doesn't really make sense. We know what he's going to do. So does Brooks, and he's constantly checking up on Tim.
Toe also has these two buddies, Greg and Travis, who want to get even with Brooks by vandalizing his house. They might as well be Beavis and Butthead. If anybody was to blame it was Toe for trying to outrun a cop.
In essence the book isn't up to O'Nan's standards. The ghost thing is hard to bring off. There's not enough of a reason for them to come back, other than that Brooks never told the whole story. His life has already been ruined due to guilt. It's like kicking a dog for peeing on the floor when you haven't trained it not to.
