|
|
Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 9, No. 10 |
|
Ron reviews the new mainstream novel by the creator of V.I. Warshawski...
|
A serious mainstream novel from a genre master
of TheColumnists.com
Do not keep waiting for the first murder in Sara Paretsky's "Bleeding Kansas" (Putnam, $25.95). That will be a long wait--and it may spoil your total enjoyment of this brilliant and thoroughly absorbing novel by one of America's most acclaimed crime novelists.
Though Paretsky, the creator of the popular series detective V.I. Warshawski of Chicago, is one of America's great mystery/crime novelists, if not its greatest. this is not a mystery novel. It is, in fact, what may be a breakthrough novel that proves once and for all what her diehard fans have known all along--Paretsky transcends genre and is quite simply one of the USA's finest novelists. Period.
For years I've been trumpeting the news that the very best crime/mystery authors, ever since the days of James Cain and Raymond Chandler, have been writing genuine literature and not just narrow category genre works. Paretsky's "Bleeding Kansas" is, without doubt, genuine literature--a masterful novel by a master fiction writer.
This time Paretsky has chosen a much wider canvas, using several families of characters who live in Kansas farm country, to spin out a story that shows how deeply some contemporary Americans are tangled up in conflicting arguments about religious beliefs, changing social mores, foreign wars and the ideas of past generations.
Paretsky's primary focus is on two neighboring families--The Grelliers and The Schapens--who live on neighboring farms near Lawrence, Kansas. This is the same landscape in eastern Kansas that Paretsky grew up in before moving to Chicago and beginning to write about a tough female private detective trying to compete in a male-dominated world.
Jim Grellier is an honest, hard-working farmer whose wife, Susan, is entranced by the rich history of the area and how the Grelliers have fit into it over the generations. She espouses ideas that many long-time farmers in the area have often resisted, if not outright opposed. Her efforts to promote organic farming and farming cooperatives has led many of her ultra-conservative neighbors to brand her a "commie."
Her activities really begin to irritate some neighbors when she becomes involved with a sexy and attractive divorcee named Gina Haring, who has come from New York City and moved into an inherited 19th century house near the Grellier farm. Gina is a Wiccan and smay be a lesbian as well. When she starts celebrating pagan rituals on her property with other offbeat ladies, who often dance naked around bonfires, Susan drifts into their group, upsetting area right-wingers and most of her own immediate family.
Most upset are The Schapens, who are members of an extremely fundamentalist Christian group and think Susan, Gina and their friends are doing the business of Satan on the same property where a hippie commune once prospered in the 1970s until an arson fire drove them off the property, killing their leader.
Head of the Schapen family is the 80something Myra, a twisted, vicious old woman who wants her son, Arnie, a redneck sheriff's deputy, and her grandson, Junior, a teenage bully who's a football star at a nearby religious college, to do what they can to "purify" the area and get rid of the Satanists.
The "Romeo and Juliet" of this tale are quiet, artistic Robbie Schapen, who's most interested in playing music with his group of pals, and the girl he loves--Lara Grellier, the bright and articulate daughter of Jim and Susan, who's a high school honor student. Though each is drawn into the complex issues dividing their families, their budding love affair carries us along with a spirit of hope.
Ultimately, the event that triggers the violent eruptions that mark the conclusion of Paretsky's story is the birth of a pure red heifer on the Schapen farm. When word of this "miracle heifer" leaks out, Jewish religious leaders flock to the farm, declaring the perfect creature to be a harbinger of the long-awaited End of Days. The fundamentalist Christians also recognize the heifer as the potential sacrifice that will bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ. Arnie Schapen, of course, also sees it as a way to make a fortune.
The catalyst that involves all the characters in the terrible events to come is an obese, alcoholic homeless woman named Elaine Logan. Once a beautiful and bright college girl, she survived the holocaust at the hippie commune and has been lusting for vengeance ever since her lover was consumed in the fire. Now a despised derelict, she vows payback and her hatred affects members of both feuding families.
"Bleeding Kansas" is loaded with beautifully-drawn characters and a storyline that takes us through still-controversial issues of several generations, throwing light on why America today so often seems a nation balanced precariously on the verge of war between conservatives and liberals, religious fanatics and everyone else.
Sara Paretsky no longer has anything to prove in the mystery field. She is right at the top on anybody's list of the finest American writers in the mystery/crime genre. Now is the time for general fiction readers to recognize what a powerful novelist she can be when she steps away from her "special section" of the bookstore to bring us an outspoken and relevant novel about today's America.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The book cover illustration comes from www.saraparetsky.com and is courtesy of the publisher. This column first posted March 10, 2008.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|