Not much of a book

I suppose this time of year one should be most charitable in both heart and wallet. I have the latter out of the way, and while filled with love for those I cherish and good will for the merest acquaintance, after purchasing and reading my step-cousin's tell-all book, I am afraid I can muster a mere modicum of the former for her.

I initially thought to compare my duty to some degree of compassion for her, albeit highly contrived, to the contract one might make with oneself regarding porn sites on the Sabbath, for the analogy would fit a construct that disregards the pangs of guilt of an unrealized resolve the other six days of the week. The subject matter of this small tome suggests the parallels as well: a salaciousness that is for the most part empty of merit. Yet there is no release to be found in these pages except as a relief that it is brief.

Thirty-one chapters and an epilogue (preparing us for the sequel) in the span of 109 pages of 12-point type might begin to give a clue as to the skill of the author, yet there are books of poetry that maintain a similar word count to achieve the sublime. One might even overlook the oversight of a comment about a character before said person was properly introduced as some kind of experimental foreshadowing of the plot. Yet, I cannot understand a description of an event interrupted with an editorial "blah, blah blah" as anything more than laziness or a recognition of the blandness of the book itself. 

Far be it from me to suggest that my command of the language or genre is without similar fault. My inadequacies would fill a bottomless pit if those shortcomings were not responsible for the excavation itself. Yet, even such humility does not prevent an assessment that is less than kind.

Not that there is not some compassion to be found for a young girl who was raped at thirteen years old. However, although there is a brief outline of the event and its bloody aftermath, the word "rape" is not used in that chapter. The story line that immediately preceded and followed tells of a very young girl given the body of someone more physically mature, and of these attributes she was fully aware, using them to garner attention at the swimming hole, along the streets of her small town and in her trips to the bathroom as she passed the bedroom of her step-brother twelve years her senior. This book is about her relationship with this man, the love of her life and the recipient of her pre and extramarital, and eventual nuptial affections until his death a few years ago.

The tragedy is compounded by a partial awareness of a longing for a replacement for her deceased, alcoholic father, something the author acknowledges as the reason behind much of her behavior, yet the more subtle manifestations that led to a life of additional poor choices appear to have eluded her some forty-plus years later. One might even suggest that the need to expose her history to a larger audience is to the same effect: attention at any cost.

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, I was present for a brief period of time in the earlier years of this story and know certain details of her life since. I can confirm that her portrayal of her promiscuous childhood is accurate. However, key elements of that time, plus the damage to others because of her dysfunctional life have been left out. This is, no doubt, for the sake of the tale's arc and it allows for a fictional element that may be the saving grace of an otherwise hackneyed, trite and pathetic first endeavor.