Unsheltered Burdened by Preachy Tone

Unsheltered (2018)

By Barbara Kingsolver

Harper, 480 pages.

★★★

Barbara Kingsolver is always worth reading, but she’s not written a truly great novel since Poisonwood Bible (1998). Alas, Unsheltered is not her long-awaited return to literary glory. It’s a good book, but not a great one. Years ago the New Republic slammed her as the mistress of “calamity writing.” That’s harsh, but it’s beyond dispute that Kingsolver seeks to make proverbial Big Statements in Unsheltered.  

On the surface, it’s a simple setup: one badly constructed house, two families separated 140 years in time, and one locale: Vineland, New Jersey. The setting was carefully chosen. Vineland was the brainchild of utopian developer Charles K. Landis (1833-1900). In 1862, Landis began building an alcohol-free town based on progressive educational and political principles. As the name suggests, agriculture was to be the economic driver of the town, especially grape production*. Landis appears in the 1875 part of Kingsolver’s novel, a time by which some residents–including journalist Uri Carruth­–had come to believe Landis’s middle initial stood for “King.”

Landis and Carruth are historical figures, as is Mary Treat (1830-1923), a brilliant entomologist, botanist, and faithful correspondent of Charles Darwin. Most Vineland residents viewed her as eccentric, as women simply weren’t supposed to pursue such things in Gilded Age America. Kingsolver’s main focus, though, is on Treat’s next-door neighbors, the (fictional) Greenwoods. They live in a house that, like the Gilded Age, looks respectable on the outside but is structurally unsound. Thatcher is the poorly paid new science teacher who struggles to keep afloat a household that includes his materialistic wife Rose, her spirited tomboy sister Polly, and their snobbish widowed mother Aurelia. To make matters worse, Thatcher teaches pure science in ways that outrage his Biblical literalist colleague Cutler. Thatcher’s only solace is Mary, who introduces him to the Pine Barrens as a plein air laboratory.

Kingsolver’s chapters alternate between 1875 and 2014 and she’s good at parallelism. Our contemporary center of attention is the Tavoularis clan. Like Thatcher Greenwood, Iano Tavoularis is a struggling academic. He lives in Vineland because the college at which he was tenured went under, and Vineland is a cheaper base from which to commute to Philadelphia for an adjunct’s starvation wages. By the mid-20^th century, post-industrial Vineland was no utopia, and it certainly was not one in the wake of Hurricane Sandy (2012). Iano and his wife Willa are ageing former hippies with two adult children: Zeke, who wants to be an investor, and “Tig” (Antigone), a diminutive fireball eco activist who thinks it’s probably too late to save the planet. There is also Nick, Iano’s dying rightwing father, and Zeke’s baby, “Dusty,” whose mother is deceased.

There are other examples of parallelism. The Greenwoods have two dogs, Scylla and Charybdis. I’ll spare you the detour into Greek mythology, but they are the origins of the phrase “between a rock and a hard place.” Antigone’s name is also plucked from myth. The irreconcilable worldviews of Zeke and Tig are analogous to disputes between blind faith versus rational science explored in Thatcher’s Scopes Trial-like tribunal, the sensational trial of Charles Landis, Nick’s talk radio parroting, Willa’s quixotic quest to save her house, Zeke’s belief in money, and Tig’s apocalyptic warnings.

Kingsolver’s novel is well plotted, rich in detail, has well developed characters, and is an imaginative blend of fiction and history, but it's pretty damn obvious in its use of metaphors. The problematic house threatens to unshelter its inhabitants, but will it allow them to “stand in the clear light of day…?” In Kingsolver’s telling, we have the choice to follow convention or truth, unreason or fact, vanity or nature, and those who tell us what we want to hear or scientists. Landis is a metaphor for Donald Trump and in case you don’t get that Mary Treat remarks, “When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore all order.” Still uncertain? A Vineland mob harasses a defender of Darwin with chants of, “Lock him up.”

I am part of the choir to whom Kingsolver is preaching, but will she convince non-believers? Too much of Unsheltered is as subtle as a Facebook rant. Her message that humankind’s house is falling down is advanced through long sections whose didactic tone is similar to that found in Edward Bellamy’s famed Looking Backward (1888). Big chunks of the novel are informative, but the prose is limp.

Kingsolver also presents either/or binaries. Perhaps she's right that the time for nuance is past but then again, maybe she’s ambiguity-challenged. I admire her passion, but she could trust her readers more instead of becoming the scientific scold to Cutler’s evangelicalism or Willa’s idealism. I certainly wouldn’t dispute the view that Planet Earth, like Vineland, has become Paradise Lost. But Kingsolver doesn’t give us much space to dream that we might, in Joni Mitchell’s words, get back to the garden.

Rob Weir  

* Vineland was, for a time, the major supplier for Welch’s Grape Juice.

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Mackenzie Shivers: February 2019 Artist/Albums of the Month

Mackenzie Shivers is New York bred and based. She refers to her music as "piano-driven indie folk with a Celtic soul," and counts Tori Amos, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, and Aoife O'Donovan among her influences. I'd recommend you ignore labels or comparisons and just listen. I have just sampled two previously released EPs and material from her new record The Unkindness and my first thought is, "Who is responsible for keeping this woman a secret from me?"

The title track from Living in My Head (2016/18) is a fragile little song that is sweet and affecting. Shivers can sing high and reedy, but she's far from being a delicate songbird. She really works the band on "Disco's Dead," and her arrangement of it drifts toward a Cowboy Junkies-like foray into acid rock. When she goes staccato to sing of putting on "my shitty black dress and my shitty black shoes," we know she meant what she emoted in the previous line: "I won't cry for the departed, I won't cry for the afraid/But I'll cry for New York City, babe, cause they say she's turnin' gray." "Lily-Rose" also rocks around the edges and it features a common trait on this release: open quiet, build, get quiet again in the middle, and then let 'er rip. "Tell Me to Run," another ghosts of NYC song, showcases how Shivers constructs a song from spray-like tinklings of the ivories. When she shapes the melody to where she wants it, she breaks out the ornamentation.

Shivers wears her Celtic cap of the EP Ravens, right down to doing an amazing cover of the old Irish chestnut "Parting Glass." She uses repeated notes in a pulse-like fashion and keeps the composition spare until she's halfway through. But not even the strings toward the end disrupt the contemplative mood. On the titletrack she breaks out a harmonium for a voice atop drone effect that makes this original song sound as if it's ancient. On "Winter," her keys are as dark as a late November evening sky. But the standout track is "Forgiveness." On this one the plinky high notes get a workout and she lets them resonate. It's waltz time and the melody is so beautiful it brings tears.

From what I've heard of The Unkindness, Ms. Shivers has another winner on her hands. On the titular offering she sings, "Far across the darkness/I see a face like mine/Frightened by the shadows/That leave us far behind." It's very atmospheric and I get the Tori Amis comparisons on this one, but the ever so subtle and tasteful touch of strings on the outro reminds us that Mackenzie Shivers rides nobody's coattails.

Rob Weir

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2019 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts

It is often the case that the animated shorts are among the more interesting Oscar nominations. I wouldn't say that's the case this year, but there are certainly a few that deserve to be seen. The Academy has made a big deal out of the fact that there are more Asians, Asian Americans, and women represented. It might want to pay more attention to quality rather than ticking PC boxes; none of the 2019 films are path breaking.

As is customary, the five nominees are packaged with a few also-rans for theater release. If you poke about you can also see most of them online. My order of preference:

Late Afternoon, Directed by Louise Bagnall, 10 minutes (Ireland)

My favorite is this poignant little film from Ireland. An old woman—who bears the director's first name of Louise, though Bagnall is not elderly—sits in an arm chair as her daughter wraps her belongings for what we infer is a move to assisted living. As she sips a cup of tea, her biscuit breaks off and falls into the cup. This is the device through which Louise accesses youthful memories and flies through time, her red tresses flowing behind her. Bagnall uses watercolor imagery and leading lines to take us back and forward chronologically. Her film is sweet, poignant, and moving. ★★★★

Animal Behaviour, Directed by David Fine, Alison Snowden, 14 minutes (Canada)

Objectively speaking, the device of animals in a therapy session has been done before—many times. Nor is the straight cartoon animation likely to impress Oscar voters. That said, this one is the most fun of all the nominees. The shrink in command of this gaggle of emotionally wrought critters is Dr. Clement, a pit bull in touch with his inner Shih Tzu. All is fine until the session is forced to confront the gorilla in the room. Delightful chaos ensues. ★★★ ½

One Small Step, Directed by Andrew Chesworth, Bobby Ponitllas, 8 minutes (US/China)

This one is also sweet, though most of the buzz has been over the fact that it's thought to be the first American/Chinese joint animated venture. Luna is an Asian girl being raised by a single-parent dad. She dreams of being an astronaut; her cobbler father is content to play shoemaker to she who years for the stars. Do dreams come true? Exactly as we would have them play out? This one also tugs at the heart strings.★★★

Weekends, Directed by Trevor Jimenez, 16 minutes, (USA/Canada)

This is probably the dark horse candidate to win as it sports the most creative use of animation: shake effects applied to sketchy drawings that evoke atmosphere rather than aiming for realism. It features a little boy from a broken family who shuffles back and forth between his mother and his samurai-loving father. He is also a vivid dreamer. This one has attracted notice because several of its reviewers haven't done their homework and have tried to connect it to US policies on immigrants. Not only is that a stretch, it ignores the fact that the "space needle" seen in backdrops is from Toronto, not Seattle. Canadians have appropriately cried foul over such ethnocentric assumptions. ★★★

Bao, Directed by Domee Shi, 8 minutes, (USA)

Here's the odds-on favorite to win the Oscar and it's a piece of sentimental rubbish! Why is it favored? Two words: Disney/Pixar. An empty nester woman makes the film's namesake steamed dumpling, when one of them pops to life. She raises the little bao to fill the space in her heart vacated by her absent son. Oh, for Pete's sake! What a bunch of essentialist twaddle. Not to mention that we've seen this sort of dough figure (pun intended) animation from Pixar over and over and over. You might also recognize that this film is a boring and insipid spin on Pinocchio. Hand me the Pepto-Bismol. ★

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Wishing Box, Directed by Wenli Zhang, 6 minutes (USA)

Speaking of derivative, Wishing Box is a swashbuckling take on King Midas. A disappointed pirate opens a treasure chest and finds it empty. His pet monkey, however, manages to pull all manner of things from the box, especially bananas. If only the pirate could get the monkey to shift his focus from fruit to doubloons…  This is slight, but funny enough to keep your interest. (It is technically a 2017 film.) ★★★

Tweet-Tweet, Directed by Zhanna Bekmambetova, 11 minutes, (Russia)

Call this one the we-wuz-robbed pick. This Russian film has a precious animated sparrow as its only recognizable character, but more is afoot (another pun) than cuddly cuteness. Our little bird on a clothesline sees only pins, snow, and a pair of legs and shoes that balance upon the rope. Those legs and feet change and we soon learn that this is not the sort of rope we had imagined. Had this been a nominee, it would have been my choice as best in show. Note: The director's father, Timur, is also a noted name in film. ★★★★

Turner and Constable at the Clark a Mild Disappointment

Turner and Constable

Clark Museum of Art  (Williamstown, MA)

Through March 10, 2019

John Constable

JMW Turner

  

Few 18^th century British artists have gained as much fame–much of it posthumous–as John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. They are displayed side by side in a current exhibit at the Clark Museum of Art. Alas, the artists' reputations exceed the merits of the show.

Constable

Of the two, John Constable (1776-1837) was the more conventional in both his painting and in his private life. (He did go through a reckless spending spree around the time his beloved wife Maria died in 1828.) Constable is known for his genre landscapes and dramatic skies. Depending on how you feel about depictions of wind in the trees, Constable is either the master of that technique or Marcel Marceau with a paintbrush.

I confess that Constable is not among my favorite artists. Too much of his work is of grand houses in sylvan settings that look like treatments for a Downton Abbey spinoff. Constable also romanticized the British countryside. For me, his watercolors are more inspiring that his oils. In the Clark show, his small studies and downsized oils intrigue more than his larger canvases.

J(oseph) M(allard) William Turner (1775-1851) was, simply, a weird individual who was short on social graces. Call him the enfant terrible of his generation. His mother was mentally ill and many have speculated that "William," his chosen name of address, may have inherited some of her instability. He was a loner who never married, though he did father two children by his housekeeper. Turner was constantly short of money and often lived amidst hand-to-mouth grime. He also shocked his contemporaries with his crude behavior.

There was no doubting his talent and he gained entry into the Royal Academy of Arts, his personal quirks notwithstanding. If you see a conventional-looking Turner, chances are good it was painted for a Royal Academy show. My favorite works of his are his moody oils and his loose and gauzy watercolors. Turner's signature works often sport low contrast tones that jump to life because of a splash of contrasting hue–a red smudge or bright side lighting in a dark room, for instance. Turner may have been mad or eccentric, but he left behind an astonishing number off canvasses.

That last remark is the foundation for my summary of the Clark show: too many Constables and not enough Turners. The lack of Turners makes the overall show feel as if it is cut from the same monochromatic cloth. The opening display is an unintended metaphor for the show's deficiencies. The first is a beach scene from Constable titled "Yarmouth Jetty." (See above) It is splendid in all the ways Constable tends to be. As is often the case, he violated the rule of thirds by making a dramatic sky dominate two-thirds of the frame. Sailing ships lean into the picture and the red-capped draughtsman draws the eye to the left foreground. 

Contrast this with a Turner beach scene, "View off Margate, Evening." (See above). The two approaches to ships on the horizon couldn't be more different. Notice the red and black tones in the lower right that look as if Turner was attacking his canvas rather than painting it. Notice also the orange sail leaning right and wispy figures on the beach leaning left. On the other side of the canvas we see what appears to be a cargo ship, but you have to look closely or you might see it as a ghost image. Turner laid on paint thickly in some parts of the image and barely skimmed the surface with color on other parts. Constable pictures always look complete; Turner's look as if he has just stepped back to contemplate what comes next. They also move, whereas most Constables are more static.

Constable

Turner

Would that there were more side-by-side moments in the Clark show. It's a small exhibit that takes up just two rooms and oddly enough, it makes the absence of diversity more noticeable. It's as if one could exit after seeing the first two paintings, as they vividly highlight the differences between Constable and Turner. I will credit the Clark for choosing some smaller Constables to contemplate. I was drawn to his "Sketch for the Opening of Waterloo Bridge," probably because its energy and disorder reminded me more of Turner. Even then, I preferred Turner's "Tummel Bridge, Perthshire." Okay, I admit that might be personal, as I've crossed that Scottish bridge. (I assume/hope it has had structural improvements since Turner visited in 1801!)

I would not call the current Clark exhibit a failure. It's more like a much anticipated restaurant meal that turns out to fine, but not special.

Rob Weir

Steve Winston, Steven Kellogg, RAM7, Timo Brandt, Sunset Avenue Sessions

Steve Winston, Unresolved

I wondered what happened to Steve Winston. I really liked his 2014 album Grayling, but then he dropped out of sight. Unresolved is a perfect title for his comeback project. It turns out he had some serious family issues to deal with and some­–like the loss of one’s parents–are not the kind that are easily fixed. He almost lost his grandson as well, so when he sings of him, the sun lights up like the Fourth of July, it’s easy to embrace his relief and joy. Flutes and strings that supplement his sensitive piano adorn this song, and it’s ultimately a very emotional song that’s honest and moving. There are lighthearted moments as well, such as his purposeful take on Neil Young on “Maidens.” It's at once a tribute–it seriously could have come from Young’s Everybody Knows This is Nowhere–but it’s also tongue in cheek. On the country rock “Talk of the Town,” Winston uses a catchy little melody, but the song is really about rumors and how it leads to sniping at each other. It too is very Neil Young-like. Welcome back, Steve. ★★★★

Steven Kellogg, Objects on the Mirror

Another Steve I wondered about is Steven Kellogg, who got his musical start in a rock band–Steven Kellogg and the Sixers–right here in Northampton, MA where I live. Kellogg is mainly a solo folk artist on the country end of the scale these days. (He has also done a TED talk!) On “High Highs, Low Lows,” we hear some spit and husk in his throat in a song that takes down fairy tales. In its place we explore life’s peaks and pits. I can easily imagine this one being picked up by a CMT star with a whiskey-soaked voice. But Kellogg is actually a pretty happy guy these days. “Love of My Life” is about his wife, his high school squeeze. “Symphony of Joy” celebrates her and their four daughters. Here’s another thing about Kellogg. He enjoys performing before military troops. He’s a poster child for progressives who don’t concede family values and Americanism to the right. ★★★★

RAM7, August 1791

If August 1791 rings no bells, you’re not Haitian. That was the year thathe George Washington of Haiti, Toussaint L’Overture, launched a rebellion against France that was ultimately the world’s first successful nationalist slave rebellion. RAM7 is a band that honors the multiple threads that are woven into modern-day Haiti: West African, French, Creole, Christian, and vodou. It’s a post-punk-meets-funk outfit in part, but also one that combines history, ceremonies, and the creative energies of an eight-member ensemble. Richard and Chenel Morse are the paternal and maternal center of RAM7. Drums and clicking percussion frame big band style brass on “Dawomen Dakò," which is a ceremonial song but one with the pulse of rock n’ roll and the vocal treatments of African music. “St Jak” is also ceremonial, but its slow build makes it feel like a gentle pop-rock ballad.  Toussaint is honored on “Badji Feray O,” which is something between funk, reggae, and folk. Not much of this album would qualify as traditional music, but it’s a really fine introduction to Haiti’s multi-hued creative talents. You’ll even hear a few blasts from the rara, a strident one-note horn often used to announce street parades. ★★★★

Timo Brandt, Grounded

Let’s stay abroad for a moment. Timo Brandt is a German folk singer who sings in English. In his case, “grounded” means the music of the 1990s that shaped him: David Gray, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and a hot of other Anglophones. Like most folk singers, he tries to strike universal chords whenever he can. On “Solid Ground” he asks a poignant question: They say you as young as you feel/And they say you have to find yourself/But what if are getting older/And still not the one you try to be? I always like people willing to be self-deprecating. Brandt puts a sunny indie pop slant to “Thanks, I’m Fine” and sings of how people tell him his songs are too slow and melancholy. I suppose one could say that, but I really like the way he compliments his light tenor with bright acoustic tuning that manages to communicate emotion without banging us over the head with them. Besides, I’m not sure what’s melancholic about a sweet song like the title track, which says that love is the thing that truly grounds us. Beats the hell out of angst and anger, yeah? If you’re wondering, I doubt you’d ever know this guy was German if I hadn’t told you. ★★★★

Jesse Terry, Lizanne Knott, and Michael Logen, Sunset Avenue Sessions

 Jesse Terry is a fine songwriter in his own right, but he’s also a chameleon who covers songs written by friends and strangers he admires. You’ll find treatments  of Johnny Cash (“Ring of Fire”) and Buffalo Springfield (“For What It’s Worth”) on   Sunset Avenue Sessions, plus some Terry originals that will immediately put you in mind of others. “Dance in Our Old Shoes” has Paul Simon’s pawmarks all over it, and John Lennon’s ghost haunts “Kaleidoscope” (The latter is on a promo sampler, but not the CD.) Lizanne Knott was once a rocker, but she’s now Nashville. “Why You Wanna Break My Heart” is smoky and evocative of something a small jazz combo might bust out around midnight. She goes mountain chanteuse on “Wildflowers.” Michael Logen is also a Nashville staple from the Americana stable. His “Already Home” unfolds to a steady foot tap that’s the pad from which he launches the falsetto built into the swelling refrain. “Ocean Floor” is quiet and introspective. These three artists harmonize with each other nicely (as does Dar Williams on Terry’s “Stargazer”). When you add up the covers and the previously recorded material, this album won’t win originality awards, but its gentle spirit might help you get through the winter more easily. ★★★

Rob Weir

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Love and Ruin Worthwhile, but Flat

LOVE AND RUIN (2018)

By Paula McLain

Penguin Random House, 432 pages

★★★

Novelist Paula McLain has been on a quest to write about intrepid women. For Circling the Sun, her subject was Beryl Markham; in The Paris Wife, it was Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife (1921-27), who introduced the then little-known writer to important literary figures. Love and Ruin could be considered a sequel to Love and Ruin, except Hemingway had a second marriage to Pauline Pfeiffer (1927-40) before he hooked up with Martha Gellhorn, his third wife (1940-45) and the main subject of McLain’s latest novel.

 Hemingway was a difficult man: reckless, egoistic, bullying, and demanding. He was sometimes referred to as a man’s man and was most comfortable in the company of fawning comrades. He was also insecure in many ways and whenever he shed one wife, he quickly remarried. (When he divorced Gellhorn in 1945, he married correspondent Mary Welsh the next year and stayed with her until his suicide in 1961.)

McLain’s take on “Marty” Gellhorn is that “Papa” Hemingway didn’t like competition! He was already famous when he met Gellhorn in 1937 and convinced her to travel to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War. This took some finagling, as Gellhorn was a relative unknown at the time. She soon proved her mettle as correspondent and mistress. Both she and Hemingway ran on adrenaline, and one might conclude that in Hemingway’s case, a mistress fit him better. Although Hemingway initially encouraged Gellhorn’s writing, he tried to make her into a doting wife who’d play hostess at his Finca Vigia homestead in Cuba, where he entertained drinking buddies and hangers-on. In McLain’s telling, Gellhorn simply wasn’t cut from domestic cloth. Although she was with Hemingway when he completed his masterpiece, For Whom the Bell Tolls, he became increasingly jealous of Gellhorn’s assignments during World War II. (He was also an alcoholic and irresponsible with money.)

Gellhorn is the heroine of Love and Ruin, but an imperfect one. It took her a few years to realize that she could not have it all: marriage, career, domesticity, and respect. We see her struggle to be taken seriously on her own terms, not as Ernest Hemingway’s wife. McLain's Gellhorn seesaws between conformity in one moment and a lioness on the hunt for what she wants the next. This made her as complicated and contradictory as Hemingway. It also made it impossible to sustain her marriage. For his part, it’s hard to determine which flowed more freely in Hemingway, testosterone or booze. Like Gellhorn, McLain shows him as a volatile mix of fragility and fierce independence. Mostly, though, Hemingway’s ego only allowed women to shine in his reflected glow.

McLain’s sprawling novel takes us from Key West and Cuba to Madrid, Finland, and Germany. In some ways, it’s about two people seeking unconditional love who spend much of their time setting conditions. The relationship only worked when Papa and Marty were in the midst of danger and on the move. The title says it all: love and ruin. No one will ever write a book about either figure titled Stasis and Happiness.

I am a big fan of McLain’s novels and love the idea that she puts strong women at the center of her tales. Yet despite the fact that Love and Ruin features two powerful and fascinating characters, it’s not up to McLain’s usual standards. It’s a good book and worth a read, but it feels flat in ways that are hard to describe. Perhaps the very thought of a sustainable relationship between these two individuals is so absurd that that we feel what must happen long before McLain describes it. How does one explain abortive domesticity without taming two individuals whose very natures rebel against that ideal? Would we believe it were we treated to moments of mundane wedded bliss? McLain gives us a woman who ultimately refused to be either a goddess or a victim, but once we know this, the rest of the story is telegraphed.

I seldom feel this way about historical figures, but for once I favor a film over a novel. The 2012 movie Hemingway & Gellhorn–with Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman in the title roles­–tells the same story as McLain’s book, but we have visuals to flesh out the details and provide a dramatic backdrop. I wouldn’t call Love and Ruin a misstep–McLain is too good a writer–but I did find it less than the sum of its parts.

Rob Weir

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The Witch Elm Worthwhile but not a Tana French Gem

The Witch Elm (2108)

By Tana French

Penguin/Random House, 528 pages.

★★★

Toby Hennessy has it all: education, supportive parents, charm, good looks, a cool PR job with an avant-garde Dublin art gallery, snarky BFFs, and a sweet girlfriend named Melissa who adores him. He's an only child, but his first cousins Susannah and Leon are like siblings to him. Maybe. Everyone loves Toby. Maybe. But one night he is beaten by burglars and suffers some pretty major physical injuries, including a concussion that leaves big memory gaps. Doctors tell him that he'll recover most of his memory. Maybe.

The Witch Elm is about lots of maybes, as in possible scenarios based upon what is remembered and forgotten. One thing that's for sure is that Toby isn't going to work soon. But being the lucky guy he is, he can get away from the bad vibes of his burgled apartment by retreating to Ivy Hall, a grand-if-dowdy suburban family home occupied by his beloved uncle Hugo. Hugo is the prototype of an eccentric bachelor, and he certainly indulged Toby, Su, and Leon as kids and adolescents. The sad note is that Hugo is dying of cancer, so Toby and Melissa settle in to help him, mostly with meals and his genealogy studies as he's a resourceful old coot otherwise.

Things get hairy when one of Su's kids finds a human skull while climbing in the giant wych elm* in the walled-in yard. Detectives soon discover an entire skeleton inside a hollow section of the tree. No such luck that it's ancient; it belongs to an old friend of Toby's named Dominic. How can that be? Dominic allegedly committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea a decade earlier, and Toby went to his memorial service. What ensues is like Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart" crossed with The Girl on the Train.

Tana French is (rightly) famous for her Irish detective novels, but The Witch Elm focuses on those caught up in the middle of what might be a murder investigation. Toby's memory is muddled, but he remembers liking Dominic, though they weren't "friend friends," as he relates to investigator Mike Rafferty. He was just another spirited guy in the pack of young adults who hung out at Hugo's house. Except Toby's benign view of Dominic doesn't match that of Su, Leon, Toby's friends, or others who all say he was an absolute monster. How can Toby's memory be so different? Was he oblivious? Is his concussion rearranging reality? Or is it PTSD for his own misdeeds? Rafferty regards Toby as a suspect, but he's pretty sure he could never do anything like this. But there are those memory gaps…. Maybe he should consider that he is a murderer.

The Witch Elm is loosely based on a real (unsolved) case from England in 1944, but it's really a mind game novel. What it does well is precisely what Poe did: put us inside the terrified mind of a suspect. It is not, however, up to the quality of Ms. French's prior novels. In my view, she tried too hard to write a book relevant to #MeToo sensibilities. It may even be a backdoor slam on men. I don't know about Irish law, but in the United States, the any charges secured by of her hawkshaw Rafferty would be tossed as entrapment. Rafferty comes off as a Machiavellian bully who force-fits his inferences, but most of her male characters are loutish and crude.

The last quarter of the book seems a parallel force-fit. Melissa seems too to be true, as if French was using her as an archetype for female goodness. I give French credit for tossing a curve that I did not anticipate, but that twist ultimately rests upon acceptance of gender essentialism that I found more troubling than a skeleton in a tree.

The good news is that even a lackluster Tana French novel is smart, lively, provocative, and well paced. Like several of her other books, French probes the darker side of privilege to remind us that the label "lucky" is one too cavalierly applied. Nonetheless, The Witch Elm is a bit like its namesake tree–a rarity. In this case, it's a novel that's merely okay rather than spectacular.

Rob Weir

* The witch elm–also called a Scots elm–has nothing to do with black magic. The Old English word wych or wice means flexible in a springy sort of way. French uses it to suggest memory is elastic. 

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