2008 Woodie Awards
BOOK CHECK: The Cure
Danny Dyer
Issue date: 5/1/08 Section: A & E
The Cure
by Varley O'Connor
**** out of four stars
Varley O'Connor's third novel, "The Cure," is an astute look at a family changed by disease. The book begins with 3-year-old Scott waking one morning in 1931, sick with a fever, but soon, he's completely devastated by polio, isolated in intensive care with an iron lung and body braces. He recovers eventually, yet is physically impaired. Unfortunately, the damage has spread to the family, tearing and scarring them emotionally.
The war and the depression make evident marks on the family and the novel as a whole, providing a rather dismal background to an already dismal book. Scott's siblings, Howard and Patsy, are raised by hired help, while the parents, Maeve and Vern, seek emotional validation through extramarital affairs, no longer content with just each other. O'Connor captures perfectly the pure, wide-eyed exploration of youth as well as she does the complex interplay between a conflicted marriage. When one might normally overlook or misinterpret what characters want to say but cannot, or what they try to veil from one another, the author's incredibly basic, yet powerful erudition of passion and feeling provides for a clear, clean understanding.
Her imagery is equally strong. She is straightforward about the way she reveals her details, even to the point of using short and choppy sentences to correspond with important, intense descriptions; but, at the same time, she appreciates the little details, which gives it a sense of reality. She does not forget to describe the objects on a table, Maeve's hair, a character's home, and so forth - little gems that gives the story a feeling of deeper intimacy.
Each individual in the family progressively reveals his or her characters by memory and flashbacks, reflecting on previous actions and their own history, reckoning their faults and qualities or hopes and fears, but all through O'Connor's objective, omniscient observations. "That's what people did, carefully built up their lives, their homes over years, over generations, and tore them to pieces," writes O'Connor, in painfully poignant reflection.
O'Connor seems to have hit upon a perfect balance in her book. The characters seem like true human beings, the descriptive poetry of her writing is entrancing, the openness of her dialogue provides for a simple yet revealing manner of speaking, and her voice is emotional, pure and free. This novel is certainly worth reading for that, if not for the incredible story that goes along with it.
by Varley O'Connor
**** out of four stars
Varley O'Connor's third novel, "The Cure," is an astute look at a family changed by disease. The book begins with 3-year-old Scott waking one morning in 1931, sick with a fever, but soon, he's completely devastated by polio, isolated in intensive care with an iron lung and body braces. He recovers eventually, yet is physically impaired. Unfortunately, the damage has spread to the family, tearing and scarring them emotionally.
The war and the depression make evident marks on the family and the novel as a whole, providing a rather dismal background to an already dismal book. Scott's siblings, Howard and Patsy, are raised by hired help, while the parents, Maeve and Vern, seek emotional validation through extramarital affairs, no longer content with just each other. O'Connor captures perfectly the pure, wide-eyed exploration of youth as well as she does the complex interplay between a conflicted marriage. When one might normally overlook or misinterpret what characters want to say but cannot, or what they try to veil from one another, the author's incredibly basic, yet powerful erudition of passion and feeling provides for a clear, clean understanding.
Her imagery is equally strong. She is straightforward about the way she reveals her details, even to the point of using short and choppy sentences to correspond with important, intense descriptions; but, at the same time, she appreciates the little details, which gives it a sense of reality. She does not forget to describe the objects on a table, Maeve's hair, a character's home, and so forth - little gems that gives the story a feeling of deeper intimacy.
Each individual in the family progressively reveals his or her characters by memory and flashbacks, reflecting on previous actions and their own history, reckoning their faults and qualities or hopes and fears, but all through O'Connor's objective, omniscient observations. "That's what people did, carefully built up their lives, their homes over years, over generations, and tore them to pieces," writes O'Connor, in painfully poignant reflection.
O'Connor seems to have hit upon a perfect balance in her book. The characters seem like true human beings, the descriptive poetry of her writing is entrancing, the openness of her dialogue provides for a simple yet revealing manner of speaking, and her voice is emotional, pure and free. This novel is certainly worth reading for that, if not for the incredible story that goes along with it.