We continue to present “New Voices”—book reviews from students in Shelah Miner’s Mormon Literature course at BYU-Salt Lake. The next set of books are by Olivia Christensen (Love Letters of the Angels of Death, by Jennifer Quist), Jackson Sheffield (City of Brick and Shadow, by Tim Wirkus), and Benjamin Lambson (Dispirited, by Luisa Perkins). Please be encouraging towards these students, most of whom are new to college-level writing assignments. They included lots of spoiler information in the reviews, I labeled the parts where one might want to skip to the end of the paragraph.
Love Letters of the Angels of Death, by Jennifer Quist. Reviewed by Olivia Coulston.
This story is about living and loving, life and death. It begins with a couple finding the husband’s mother dead in her trailer. They are left to tie up all of the lose ends after her death and come to grasp the fact that they will be close to the death of loved ones throughout their lives. Each chapter or “love letter” is a flashback from their lives together, written about the wife (Carrie) from the husband’s perspective. There are segments from Carrie’s life, such as losing her grandfather as a child, and witnessing a car accident as a teenager. These flashbacks do not have a particular order to them, but it all seems to flow nicely. [Spoiler alert: You might want to skip the rest of the paragraph.] The main theme throughout the book seemed to be the impending death of the writer/husband Brigs, following moments in their lives, including their courtship, marriage, childbirth and childrearing. As a reader you grow to love the relationship that Carrie and Brigs have. It is very unique (and confusing at first) to be reading about Carrie’s life through the lens of Brigs because you see how much he truly and deeply cares for his wife. In the end Brigs does end up dying in a car accident and Carrie is left to be the angel of death that she has throughout her life, and deals with the loss of her one true love.
This book was very interesting for me, because I have never had anyone close to me pass away. The way that the author is able to describe the death of these countless people and Carrie’s obsession with death is definitely an eye-opener. The writing style was so beautiful and descriptive, almost poetic. Since I am nearing the end of my third pregnancy and about to begin the breastfeeding routine I related easily to this passage, “…your breasts ache and harden beneath your tightly folded arms. It tingles and stings, as if you can feel each of the rough, tiny crystals that move through the glands and ducts beneath your skin…You wouldn’t need to cut yourself to spill it. The milk runs out of your body all the same, through openings in you skin that you can’t even see – smaller than pores. You always said your milk was so pretty – like liquefied ivory when it stood on our newborns fuzzy cheeks. It’s probably the same colour as the bones from which it was drawn – your bones, delicate and beautiful and unsee-able except for the bits of them suspended in your milk (pg 208).” I love this passage! It is so odd yet so beautiful! Brigs goes on to talk about the sacrifice that it is for Carrie to be raising their first son and how she has given up her entire life to give life to him. Brigs points out that it is a sacrifice for him as well because he had to give up the wife he once knew.
The character development was rather confusing to begin with because the only names that are ever used are you, I/me, and Brigs. After a few chapters and rereading of many passages I came to understand that the entire book is written about Carrie (who’s name is not mentioned until the very last chapter!) from her husband’s point of view. It gave a very interesting twist on things and the author did an impeccable job! The sweetest part about it was that you could see how much Brigs truly cared for and loved his wife, as he would talk about all of her quirks, obsessions and crazy personality in such a loving way. Toward the beginning of the book there is a chapter about Carrie worrying that Brigs has died because he was late coming home from work. When Brigs finally does arrive home Carrie has been planning his funeral and starts asking him all sorts of questions about flowers, speakers, cremation and burial. While this discussion is ensuing Brigs is admiring the way his wife is cutting up a chicken carcass, “Everything you do in the kitchen looks so easy – the way you separate an egg or roll a meatball onto its raw side without having it crumble into bits in the frying pan. Even this precise mutilation of the chicken … there’s a kind of perfection to it. It’s gorgeous. And it’d make you even madder than you already are if I mention it.” This kind of sideline view is constant throughout the book as you grow to love Carrie, and you can’t seem to help growing to love Brigs at the same time because his view of his wife is just so sweet!
Although Jennifer Quist is an LDS author there was never any mention of whether Brigs and Carrie were LDS. Although there were many hints, such as talking about the spirit and body making up the soul, and eternal marriage, so sometimes I wondered whether they really were LDS. Especially with so much talk about death I found it really remarkable that the author was able to make it more about the physical/earthly part and less about the afterlife, even though that is so important in Mormon doctrine. There were a couple of obsessions Carrie had, like being cremated and wanting to keep her husband’s hand bone, that I found kind of questionable when it comes to LDS beliefs. Throughout the book she talked about how she was definitely wanting to be cremated when she passed away because she could not stand the thought of rotting away in a grave. She tried very passionately to convince her husband that he needed to be cremated as well, but he never really seemed comfortable with the idea. Carrie’s other obsession (which was super creepy in my opinion) was that she wanted to keep one of Brig’s hand bones after he died so that she could have a piece of him with her after he left. [Spoiler alert!] In the second to last chapter of the book, in the scene where Brigs had just died in a car accident, she ended up going to the doctor’s office to get a scalpel so that she could cut Brig’s hand bone off before he was buried. It never said whether she did it or not, but I would not doubt that she did end up taking it even though it is illegal to cut up people like that after they are dead!
All in all, this book gave me a really good look at how we should live our lives knowing that death is just a part of it. Although I do not totally agree with all of the ways that Carrie dealt with her death preoccupations, I love the fact that she was able to talk about death like it was a matter of fact. Although it was one of her biggest fears, she was not afraid to talk about it. Death seems to be a taboo topic in LDS culture, and even though we have a firm belief in the afterlife, we have a hard time talking about it the effects that it has in this life. When we go to a funeral we always want to be happy knowing that they are in a better place, but most of the time people just need some empathy because let’s face it: death is sad, scary, and just plain sucks most of the time. This book really made me want to appreciate every moment that I have with my husband and children, even if it is just the ordinary everyday grind that makes up this thing we call life.
City of Brick and Shadow by Tim Wirkus. Reviewed by Jackson Sheffield
Missionaries come home with many stories, some spiritual and uplifting, and others crazy and bizarre. City of Brick and Shadow is a crazy mission stories set to the extreme. The novel is set up as the main character, Mike Schwartz, looks back at a his mission in Brazil. Young Elder Schwartz gets assigned to Vila Barbosa, an area that nobody wants to serve in due to the miniscule size of the ward and how dangerous the city can be. Elder Schwartz also gets assigned to be with Elder Toronto, an infamous Elder known for being disobedient and a little insane. Although initially disappointed, the Elders have a baptism soon after they are together. The new convert is a middle aged man named Marco Aurélio. Weeks later, while contacting in the neighborhood market, the Elders spot Marco in the crowd, but when they call his name he sees them and runs away. They cannot find him anywhere for the next few days. The following Sunday a man in a tan suit who claims he knows Marco Aurélio comes into the church building looking for the Elders. The man asks the missionaries to meet him later that night at a certain address. Once the Elders finally find the address that night, they look inside the tiny house to see that the man in the tan suit who had talked to them earlier laid dead on a bed with his face so beaten it was unrecognizable. The startled Elders run away and call the police for help. When the police show up nearly two hours later, they go in the small house to find nothing on the bed with no trace of blood or a murder. The angry police officers and confused Elders part ways. This spurs the Elders, especially Elder Toronto, to find out what happened to this man and to where their recent convert has disappeared.
[Spoiler alert: The next paragraph summarizes the last half of the book and how the mystery is “resolved”.]
The rest of the novel Wirkus writes about the journey the Elders take while trying to solve their mystery. Elder Schwartz, although interested in what happened to Marco, is not as intrigued as his senior companion Elder Toronto, who becomes so obsessed with the mystery that he barely sleeps at night. They visit different places and different people that may know Marco or of his whereabouts. The Elders break many mission rules in order to try and find answers to their questions while simultaneously having to appear to their mission leaders that nothing is out of the ordinary. In between some of the chapters of the novel, Wirkus includes sections titled “The Argentine” that tell a different story of a past man who came to Vila Barbosa and began to discretely take control of the city. This man would brutally kill anyone that got in his path or tried to disobey him. Ultimately Elder Schwartz and Toronto are told they need to contact this man themselves in order to find out why Marco disappeared. While trying to find “The Argentine,” they stop by a member’s house they meet a guy who claims to be the Argentine himself. After meeting with this man they return to their apartment where the two police officers who the Elders initially contacted about the murder wait with another big man. The three end up beating up the two Elders into unconsciousness and even blind one eye of Elder Schwartz in the process. The book then ends by flashing forward to the future with the two ex-Elders meeting up again. Toronto is still obsessed with trying to solve the murder mystery while Schwartz has tried to forget about it completely. The novel ends there, leaving many questions unanswered, and leaving the reader to decide what happened for themselves.
Although this novel is classified as a literary novel, I was really not satisfied with the ending. I felt as though I was not even given enough information to even make a conclusion myself to what happened to Marco Aurélio or to the man in the tan suit. I assume that Marco died, but no one can really know. Wirkus really expects the reader to step into the missionaries’ shoes and try to solve the mystery for themselves. While it may intrigue others, it only made me frustrated with the book and not enjoy it as much. Another weakness I found in the novel was the tempo of the plot. I would have liked to see more action or intensity, it felt a little slow to me. I think I was also expecting it to all lead up to a climatic ending, and when that did not come, the anticipation died.
Wirkus did do an amazing job on creating and developing his characters. For those who have served missions, both Elder Schwartz and Elder Toronto are classically recognizable types of missionaries. Elder Toronto is the older, more experienced missionary that knows exactly how to do missionary work, but out of boredom or rebellion does not find the mission rules important to follow. Elder Schwartz is the awkward missionary that cannot speak the language very well and is just going through the motions of missionary work not wanting to call attention to himself. I enjoyed how realistic the characters interactions were when they were together. Chapter six is a great example of this. Elder Toronto asks Elder Schwartz why he is out on a mission and what gets him through the day. After some sarcastic replies, Elder Schwartz expresses his real thoughts to the reader, “If…he stuck it out for the full two years, he could go home and forget about the whole thing. It would be like none of this ever happened. That was what got him through the day, and what business was it of Elder Toronto’s?” Elder Schwartz represents the timid but responsible side, while Elder Toronto represents the fearless and reckless side. There is a balance between the two extreme types. Elder Schwartz just passes each day not fulfilling much of his dreams or aspirations, while Elder Toronto is so focused on reaching his personal goals or desires that he can barely function. While the characters themselves did not change much throughout the novel, our understanding of their characters and their actions grew as Wirkus gave the reader more information.
Overall I found this book fun and interesting, but once I read the last page I was not satisfied. It left me frustrated not knowing what ultimately happened to Marco Aurélio and the rest of the mystery. As a returned missionary who served in South America, I really enjoyed the reality of missionary work and the authenticity of the culture throughout the book. Although I could see many different people reading this book, I felt as though this novel works best in a home audience. There is a lot of LDS vocabulary scattered throughout the book, although probably not to pertinent to the story itself. I would not recommend this book to others unless they really enjoyed murder mystery books or served a mission in or around Brazil. I did not love the book, but I still found it well written and entertaining.
Dispirited, by Luisa M. Perkins. Reviewed by Benjamin Lambson.
Dispirited is a young adult novel about a boy named Blake whose mother died when he was young. Blake teaches himself how to get his spirit to leave his body to go out and search for his deceased mother. During one such attempt he tries to come back to his body, only to find that another spirit has entered it and is not giving it up. Blake must rely on his new stepsister Cathy to help him out. The novel contains a mixture of genres. While reading it I found that it could be considered a horror story, a romance, and an adventure. While considered a young adult novel, it contains some darker elements in it like drugs and other worldly experiences, so I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone under the age of 15.
Blake’s mother had passed away and Cathy had just dealt with the passing of her mother. Their remaining parents married and the story follows how Bunny (Blake’s spirit’s nickname) is able to establish a relationship with his stepsister Cathy to help him get back into his body once again. The story took a while before I became intrigued. Once Cathy started hearing voices and experiencing strange feelings, things became more interesting. For most of the book Cathy was the only character that experienced these strange voices and experiences, and was the only one that could see and talk to Bunny. One day she is outside and notices Bunny on a rock. She talks to him and notices that Blake is staring out his window with the angriest, most vexed face possible. She wonders what these two have against each other. She later learns after a lot of strange experiences that the spirit that is in Blake’s body hates the original spirit and wants to get rid of it. This is a main conflict.
Cathy makes friends with a neighbor boy named Rich who is crippled and cannot walk. One day Cathy was walking home from school and decided to go to the lake that she has often been to with Rich. She gets a bit turned around and finds a large beautiful white mansion near the lake. As she comes closer to the house she notices a thumping noise become louder and louder. She listens to the wall of the house and hears its heartbeat. She tries to open the door but it is locked. As she leaves the house she notices that the porch starts to elongate itself and get darker and darker. Scared, Cathy runs home. Cathy and Rich like each other and eventually start “going out”. One evening while she and Rich had just established their new relationship she gets visited by Bunny who says that it is an emergency. She leaves Rich without an explanation and heads to the white lake house. Once inside she enters a room that allows her to see the past and what others are doing in the present. She sees how Blake’s body was kidnapped by another spirit and how that spirit is abusing the body. The spirit inhales strong drugs and views pornography on the computer screen. It is interesting how the author weaves Mormon doctrine into the story. You get the sense that once the spirit has a body that it wants to experience all of the physical “carnal” pleasures that it can. Another portion of the novel talks about Cathy’s heritage and explains that the reason she can see this old house and talk to spirits is because of her lineage. The author explains a scene in one of Cathy’s dreams where she is part of a tapestry that contains her family history, depicted as a family tree.
Cathy keeps a lot of her experiences to herself but tells Rich about this mansion on the lake. Rich finds out that no such building exists. They do a lot of historical research here to try to solve the mystery. They find out that the building burned down a few hundred years earlier. This makes no sense to Cathy, who had gone inside the building. Eventually Cathy just can’t keep it to herself anymore and tells Rich everything. Rich is skeptical about Cathy’s other-worldly experiences, and thinks that either there is a logical explanation for everything, or that she is indeed crazy. The author does a good job of helping you feel like the world you are reading about is realistic. The emotions are real and the arguments and thoughts of the characters make sense.
[Spoiler alert] The story becomes more intriguing when Cathy runs away to the lake house and her family can’t find her anywhere. Blake overdoses on heroin and is taken to the hospital. Rich comes over to their house to see what is going on and Mae, one of Cathy’s little sisters, explains to Rich that she saw Bunny and talked to him. Bunny told her that Cathy was helping him. Finally, Rich realizes that what Cathy was telling him was true. He leaves and meets up with Cathy to help her as best as he can. Blake’s bad spirit does all he can to keep Bunny away from his body and even appears as other people to trick them and get them into doing what he wants. The story ends by Cathy finding an old book and saying some Dutch words that made light come out of the book to attack the bad spirit. She ends up freeing Bunny and he finds his mom at the end and they both ascend up to heaven.
The novel took too many creative liberties for me. It seemed so realistic with all of the human emotions and drama between Cathy and Rich that when she would go on these crazy adventures in the lake house, and ends up killing this bad spirit by what seemed like using light magic from a spell book, it just didn’t seem to mesh with how the book was set up. Perkins definitely takes the reader on a crazy journey, a journey that I was not able to keep up with all of the time. Some of her experiences in this lake house sere so strange and had so little to do with the plot that I felt like excusing them and skim to where the story continued. For example, at one point, one of the good spirits takes Cathy on a journey into a painting on the wall of the lake house. “Cathy’s own hand moved onto the painting, and her arm and head followed… Cathy reached up, grabbed a branch for more leverage, and pulled the rest of her body through the surface of the canvas” (157). She ends up somewhere around Central Park in New York where she and the spirit are confronted by the bad spirit and have to escape by jumping into a fountain that goes deeper than it should and she ends up in some dark cave in the real world after she gets out.
Perkins wrote the book in a very familiar tone that the reader can relate to. The characters are in high school and have real high school challenges like being popular and wanting to be liked by the opposite sex. This familiar tone helped me get through the book because there were times when I got lost in the intricate fantasy world, and I had to re-read the text to understand what was going on. The novel was interesting and seemed to contain literary nuggets that I am sure go a lot deeper than what I was able to understand reading it once through. The only problem is that I don’t think I will be reading it again any time soon.
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I like these posts best when I’ve read all the books. Like this time.