Book-It 'o14! Book #47
Oct. 18th, 2014 06:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alivemagdoleneThe Fifty Books Challenge, year five! (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013) This was a library request.
Title: The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson
Details: Copyright 2014, Random House
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"Mississippi, 1945. World War II is over. Yet a very different kind of battle is just starting to brew at home.
War hero Joe Howard is coming back to the small town of Revere, Mississippi, after having fought to defend democracy overseas. At a rest stop, he calls his father to let him know he will be home in a few hours' time. He gets back on the bus, looking forward to their reunion. But when a white police officer demands that he and the other passengers in the black section of the bus give up their seats for a few German POWs, Joe Howard refuses. Two weeks later, his dead body is found.
Thousands of miles away, Regina Robichard is a newly minted lawyer working at the NAACP for a young Thurgood Marshall. She stumbles across a letter asking him to come down to Mississippi to investigate Joe Howard's case. At first Regina is intrigued by a photo included in the letter-- one of Howard and his father, looking so alike and clearly filled with love and admiration for each other. Then she realizes the letter is signed by M.P. Calhoun-- the reclusive author of her favorite childhood book, The Secret of Magic. Why is a white author, the most famous in the country perhaps, asking for Thurgood Marshall's help?
Despite his better judgement, Marshall gives Regina permission to investigate the case. In Mississippi, however, she finds that nothing is as it seems, and she must navigate the muddy waters of racism and town secrets as she attempts the impossible-- to obtain justice for a black man in the deep South.
Inspired by a true story, The Secret of Magic explores our differences and, at the same time, our commonality, in this fascinating portrait of four people determined to swim against the current that surrounds them, no matter the price."
Why I Wanted to Read It: This bobbed up as a recommendation via other books I'd selected and the premise sounded fascinating.
How I Liked It: The premise of the book is fascinating. A famous author, a town of secrets, the promise of justice, and the interweaving of actual historic characters with fictional ones.
As far as the execution, it falls sadly flat, but not for a lack of trying.
The book starts strong with an account of the murdered veteran's last day, including the events that led up to his death. The book starts to falter when it gets to Regina Robichard, skipping ahead a year to the NAACP's New York City office, where she receives a letter requesting help in the case. The author has a daunting task of introducing a brand new character who will be our main character, a new setting (that will not be our main setting), our main character's Troubled Backstory including her complicated relationship with her mother, who her mother is, who Regina herself is, and, oh, the case that the whole book hinges upon, along with our meeting the author's version of Thurgood Marshall.
What follows is unfortunately the course for most of the rest of the book. A tangle of purple prose, too many storylines (that don't get either developed nor finished, they just muddle), and some just general clumsy writing that begs for a better editor.
Regina is cast largely as the audience/reader surrogate into the world of post-War small town Mississippi, her reminders of racial lines meant to be our reminders of racial lines. This isn't the best strategy, as despite living in New York City and being raised by a civil rights advocate who grew up in the South, Regina is about as oblivious/surprised by racial lines as a though she was a particularly sheltered white person. The author's painting of New York City as some insulation against overt racial prejudice is ridiculous as laughably inaccurate. While obviously distinctions (particularly as Regina is portrayed as an up and coming lawyer for the NAACP) in experience would exist, the utter shock and bewilderment with which the character meets such overt racism and hate in the South strike hollow and unrealistic.
While the book lands some great blows (one prominent example: in the midst of the tentative joy in the founding of the new NAACP chapter in Mississippi, Regina and the only other woman there endure a sexist, demeaning joke with the realization that their own revolution will have to wait), the book never reaches the potential it could. There's just too much clutter, not only with the storylines, but with the telling itself. Again, sharper editing could've made this book so much better and if not fulfilled the promise of the premise, at least get far closer.
In my five years now of doing this project, I've come up against the conclusion that it's far worse to get a sense of how good a book could've been than to not enjoy it altogether. Unfortunately, that's the case here.
Notable: Another civil rights historical novel I've reviewed for this project, The Help, drove me crazy with its historical inaccuracies and anachronisms. While this book fortunately didn't make as many transgressions, some do still exist and annoyingly.
Aside from Regina's not-that-plausible almost-complete naivety when it comes to racial lines (which is arguable about whether that's historical accuracy or just poor characterization and plot device), minutia include a surprisingly long stretch devoted to Regina confusing wildlife (especially deer) with Bambi.
The problem is that the exchanges take place in 1946. Regina is twenty-six. The novel on which the now-famous Disney film is based, Bambi, a Life in the Woods, was released in 1923 and translated to English in 1928. The book was well-received by several literary critics, but it did not become a fixture in pop culture until after the 1942 Disney film, which was not a success with either critics or audiences at its original release, it only became one in subsequent reissuing, which took place well after the events in this story. It's extremely unlikely that it'd be a reference, particularly among older people, to throw off easily.
Another bit of minutia that throws you out of the story is one character relating part of her family backstory, her mother's youth, in which well-meaning friends attempt to make over her appearance.
The problem? The story she's telling is at least twenty years old, which takes us to the early 'twenties. Women wearing make-up at all was still fairly uncommon, and any lipstick outside "red" would be fairly hard to come by.
Title: The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson
Details: Copyright 2014, Random House
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"Mississippi, 1945. World War II is over. Yet a very different kind of battle is just starting to brew at home.
War hero Joe Howard is coming back to the small town of Revere, Mississippi, after having fought to defend democracy overseas. At a rest stop, he calls his father to let him know he will be home in a few hours' time. He gets back on the bus, looking forward to their reunion. But when a white police officer demands that he and the other passengers in the black section of the bus give up their seats for a few German POWs, Joe Howard refuses. Two weeks later, his dead body is found.
Thousands of miles away, Regina Robichard is a newly minted lawyer working at the NAACP for a young Thurgood Marshall. She stumbles across a letter asking him to come down to Mississippi to investigate Joe Howard's case. At first Regina is intrigued by a photo included in the letter-- one of Howard and his father, looking so alike and clearly filled with love and admiration for each other. Then she realizes the letter is signed by M.P. Calhoun-- the reclusive author of her favorite childhood book, The Secret of Magic. Why is a white author, the most famous in the country perhaps, asking for Thurgood Marshall's help?
Despite his better judgement, Marshall gives Regina permission to investigate the case. In Mississippi, however, she finds that nothing is as it seems, and she must navigate the muddy waters of racism and town secrets as she attempts the impossible-- to obtain justice for a black man in the deep South.
Inspired by a true story, The Secret of Magic explores our differences and, at the same time, our commonality, in this fascinating portrait of four people determined to swim against the current that surrounds them, no matter the price."
Why I Wanted to Read It: This bobbed up as a recommendation via other books I'd selected and the premise sounded fascinating.
How I Liked It: The premise of the book is fascinating. A famous author, a town of secrets, the promise of justice, and the interweaving of actual historic characters with fictional ones.
As far as the execution, it falls sadly flat, but not for a lack of trying.
The book starts strong with an account of the murdered veteran's last day, including the events that led up to his death. The book starts to falter when it gets to Regina Robichard, skipping ahead a year to the NAACP's New York City office, where she receives a letter requesting help in the case. The author has a daunting task of introducing a brand new character who will be our main character, a new setting (that will not be our main setting), our main character's Troubled Backstory including her complicated relationship with her mother, who her mother is, who Regina herself is, and, oh, the case that the whole book hinges upon, along with our meeting the author's version of Thurgood Marshall.
What follows is unfortunately the course for most of the rest of the book. A tangle of purple prose, too many storylines (that don't get either developed nor finished, they just muddle), and some just general clumsy writing that begs for a better editor.
Regina is cast largely as the audience/reader surrogate into the world of post-War small town Mississippi, her reminders of racial lines meant to be our reminders of racial lines. This isn't the best strategy, as despite living in New York City and being raised by a civil rights advocate who grew up in the South, Regina is about as oblivious/surprised by racial lines as a though she was a particularly sheltered white person. The author's painting of New York City as some insulation against overt racial prejudice is ridiculous as laughably inaccurate. While obviously distinctions (particularly as Regina is portrayed as an up and coming lawyer for the NAACP) in experience would exist, the utter shock and bewilderment with which the character meets such overt racism and hate in the South strike hollow and unrealistic.
While the book lands some great blows (one prominent example: in the midst of the tentative joy in the founding of the new NAACP chapter in Mississippi, Regina and the only other woman there endure a sexist, demeaning joke with the realization that their own revolution will have to wait), the book never reaches the potential it could. There's just too much clutter, not only with the storylines, but with the telling itself. Again, sharper editing could've made this book so much better and if not fulfilled the promise of the premise, at least get far closer.
In my five years now of doing this project, I've come up against the conclusion that it's far worse to get a sense of how good a book could've been than to not enjoy it altogether. Unfortunately, that's the case here.
Notable: Another civil rights historical novel I've reviewed for this project, The Help, drove me crazy with its historical inaccuracies and anachronisms. While this book fortunately didn't make as many transgressions, some do still exist and annoyingly.
Aside from Regina's not-that-plausible almost-complete naivety when it comes to racial lines (which is arguable about whether that's historical accuracy or just poor characterization and plot device), minutia include a surprisingly long stretch devoted to Regina confusing wildlife (especially deer) with Bambi.
The problem is that the exchanges take place in 1946. Regina is twenty-six. The novel on which the now-famous Disney film is based, Bambi, a Life in the Woods, was released in 1923 and translated to English in 1928. The book was well-received by several literary critics, but it did not become a fixture in pop culture until after the 1942 Disney film, which was not a success with either critics or audiences at its original release, it only became one in subsequent reissuing, which took place well after the events in this story. It's extremely unlikely that it'd be a reference, particularly among older people, to throw off easily.
Another bit of minutia that throws you out of the story is one character relating part of her family backstory, her mother's youth, in which well-meaning friends attempt to make over her appearance.
“"But then again, they did the same thing with Mama. They dolled her up in a blue-and-white silk print that had been given to her by her own Virginia-grandmother and that my mama always swore made her look fat. They put pink lipstick on her. And pink was a color that always made her seem dead, even when she was alive."” (pg 233)
The problem? The story she's telling is at least twenty years old, which takes us to the early 'twenties. Women wearing make-up at all was still fairly uncommon, and any lipstick outside "red" would be fairly hard to come by.
