You know how you read a book and you really don’t like it but you can’t decide what it is exactly you don’t like? The prior sentence is written in second person plural, a particular point of view rarely used in novels because it can be annoying to the reader and ineffective in conveying a story.
Point of view (POV) is one of the most important techniques a writer employs to tell a story. A skilled writer applies critical analysis and thought when choosing the best perspective so it serves the characters and the story. When a writer chooses the wrong or weakest viewpoint to tell a story, the story fails; fails to engage, fails to satisfy, fails to evince the realization of the writer’s inspiration.
Noah Hawley’s Before the Fall suffers from the worst choice for POV, enlisting an omniscient voice to tell the story of what happens when a private airplane belonging to a wealthy media mogul crashes in the Atlantic shortly after takeoff, killing all aboard except for one man and the mogul’s four-year-old son. Scott, a long-distance swimmer, hauls little JJ on his back and swims fourteen miles back to shore, becoming a hero and then a suspect when the reason for the crash comes under scrutiny.
Why the plane crashed is the central mystery of the 390-page book. Each of the nine dead passengers’ stories comes to life, their chapters alternating with chapters about Scott and JJ navigating the after-disaster media attention and fame.
And here is where the omniscient POV proves a poor choice: First, in every chapter the reader is subjected to the thoughts of all the characters as scenes play out. This proves difficult because the reader doesn’t know with whom to place allegiance–all characters are treated as equally important, even though they aren’t. It is confusing and makes the reader feel uneasy and adrift.
Second, the natural result of “head-hopping” is skating on the surface of the action instead of delving into any meaning or depth. In separate chapters devoted to each of the nine dead passengers, Hawley reverts to telling about their lives, details their backstories ad nauseum, and trying (but failing) to gin up some kind of suspense about reasons any of them might have had to cause the plane to crash. These chapters–and most of the book–read like a script treatment, and perhaps the book resulted from an idea Hawley had for TV or a movie (Or maybe it’s the other way around: he wrote the book hoping to sell it for screen rights.)
Third, where is the editor? How does this book pass muster when submitted to the publishing company? Hawley’s jacket copy shows he has written feature films, several TV series, and four novels. Does that mean he doesn’t need editing?
When a book this amateurish is nominated for an Edgar Award in the Best Book category, the question again arises about the process Mystery Writers of America uses to screen potential nominees and the criteria they apply.
On a scale of one to ten, I rate this book a one.
You Reader, Me Jane
April 25, 2017
addyfran Commentary, Review Edgar Awards, Jane Steele, Lyndsay Faye, Mystery Writers of America Best Novel Leave a comment
A final and quick review for the Edgar Award in the Best Novel Category: Jane Steele, by Lyndsay Faye, is a historical romp with a fan fiction sensibility about it as it riffs on Jane Eyre. Faye has been nominated before by Mystery Writers of America in the same category for her book The Gods of Gotham, which I also enjoyed. But our Jane is rendered with a modern sensibility when she takes it into her own hands to serve vigilante justice on men who have wronged women. The first is her cousin who tries to molest a young Jane and finds himself shoved to the bottom of a ravine, where he dies. Jane is wracked with guilt but steadfastly lies her way out of it.
When her mother dies not long after, orphan Jane is banished from Highgate House (which her mother raised her to believe is her rightful inheritance) and sent to board at Lowan Bridge School, a beastly place that starves the all-female students (requiring them to narc on each other in order to eat) and is run by super-creepy Mr. Munt, a guy who has nothing but sex, sex, and more perverted sex on his mind and in his journals. Jane discovers these, Munt discovers her, and gives her a no-win choice: be committed to an asylum or he will starve her best friend Clarke to death. Jane chooses door number three and dispatches him with alacrity. She and Clarke escape the school and flee to London, where they both grow older and wiser. Jane commits two more murders (both men had it coming in spades), but Clarke learns Jane lied to her and abandons her.
Jane casts about London writing invented bawdy news to support herself and finally answers an ad to be a governess at Highgate House. She gets the job (meeting Charles Thornfield in a horse mishap in a sly nod to Jane Eyre meeting Mr. Rochester). Of course, she falls hard for the master but he is distant and only wants her to home-school his ward Sahjara and keep her safe. There’s a intriguing sub-plot about a trunk of jewels that are missing, Faye doing a masterful job recounting Punjabi history through this storyline. Ultimately, Jane saves her charge’s life (as well as Sardar’s, Charles Thornfield’s childhood friend, even though he loses his hand), finds the jewels, and they all end up happy at Highgate House.
On a scale of one to ten, I rate this book a nine. This is a tough book to compare to Reed Farrel Coleman’s Where it Hurts (also a nine) because the two are markedly different. I ran out of time and was not able to read the other two nominees in the category (The Ex by Alafair Burke; What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin), and Before the Fall by Noah Hawley only rated a one. I am going to predict Where it Hurts to take home the Edgar Award for Best Novel, although it’s a real toss-up. My writing pal Karen Burgess makes her prediction here http://www.litlunchbox.com. The Edgar Awards will be announced on Thursday, April 27!