Carrie Welton by Charles Monagan

Charles Monagan is an award-winning journalist, writer, editor, and lyricist. Carrie Welton may just be one of the best indie-published historical novels I have read in a while.  It has its flaws, but here, finally is a complete and well-told tale... that also happens to be true!

Carrie Welton is the story of a young woman who is determined to remain untamed by an abusive father and acquiescent mother.  Hemmed in only a bit by propriety and social expectations, Carrie's life takes her from a wealthy youth in Connecticut, to the artistic communities of New York, and finally to the Rocky Mountains.  Readers can follow her childhood closeness with her horse and sympathetic companion, Knight, to her financial involvement in the beginnings of the ASPCA.  Twined with the changing politics and social temperature of the mid to late 1800s, Carrie's life is a perfect backdrop for the history that carved a new nation into a country that would not be divided.

Readers are introduced to Carrie in a prologue offered by neighbor and confidante, Frederick, who also narrates Parts 1 and 3.  It was thrilling to read the voice of a 19th century narrator written in the 21st century.  Part 2 is third-person limited, focusing on Carrie's experiences away from Rose Hill, the home in which she had met abuse and tyranny.  And here, I must admit, I missed Frederick's voice.  It was much more appealing to come through his perspective than merely watching Carrie as we do in Part 2.

Mr. Monagan's skill as writer and researcher is clear in this work.  Obvious, also, is his knack for stories that interest.  His abilities in perception and perspective carry the plot where there is little historical information available.  This made the rare moments of too-much-historical-detail forgivable.  The sense of reportage Mr. Monagan has is spot-on in his description of the effects of the coming Civil War on the communities of Connecticut.

Life doesn't have the same arc that fiction does, but Mr. Monagan gives it a hearty go in this fascinating book.  There are moments of beautiful imagery and even a few absolutely perfect sentences here.  And while I agreed to review this book because I have found myself in the same locations as Carrie (a New England childhood and adulthood in the Rocky Mountains), it is not a book that will just interest readers of local history.  It is a solid story of an intriguing personality that will haunt. 

Photo Credit: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51y1b1sGWeL._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

I received this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

This review can also be read in the Canon City Daily Record.
 

Warning ... this book is not for the faint of heart. It is gritty, raw, and honest. There are words and situations that may be triggering and/or offensive to some. Having said this, I highly recommend "Ten Thousand Saints" by Eleanor Henderson, an unconventional coming of age tale not yet told. Nine years in the making, it is thorough, highly detailed and filled with fantastic imagery.

"Ten Thousand Saints" is a no holds barred examination of the straight edge punk scene, 1988, New York. Yet it begins in a small Vermont town with two teenage boys, close friends, brought closer by their sense of loneliness and longing, soothed only by recreational drug use. Jude and Teddy meet Eliza, the daughter of Jude's father's girlfriend, and a New Year's Eve party goes wrong - very wrong. Tragedy strikes leaving Teddy dead from a drug overdose. Jude searches out Teddy's brother, Johnny, in New York City, settles there, and begins to follow a new lifestyle: no drugs, no sex, no alcohol, meat or cigarettes. Young Eliza finds herself tangled and enmeshed in the grieving lives of Jude and Johnny.

Unsentimental, this novel is "West Side Story" meets "Catcher in the Rye." There is intense emotion and fast-paced action, addressing many universal themes and dicey topics. Here children are on the cusp of adulthood, living adult lives and making adult decisions, from only the lessons of childhood. In the face of their parents' mistakes, these teens try to do differently, and, oddly enough, find themselves often in the same boat. History repeats itself, just putting on a new coat for each rising generation.

Ms. Henderson's ability to read and share the thoughts of her characters is masterful. We are drawn to those we meet in these pages. This book explores the fragility of the human soul, regardless of life choices. In these pages, we come face-to-face with AIDS, homelessness, abandonment, homosexuality, drugs, drinking, teen sex, death, adoption, abortion, punk music, friendship, love, parenthood, children's rights, marriage, divorce, religion, fatherhood, motherhood, fetal alcohol syndrome, bullies, and revenge. But don't let that keep you from this story.

I invite you to read with compassion and suspend the judgment our everyday lives seem to demand. Recognize that people who are quite different than us still have the same dilemmas - when is a child an adult, and when is an adult finally grown-up? How does one pull life back into a place of sense when choices are made, often in error, by ourselves or others? Through this tale, we develop a new vocabulary that crosses the lines of comfort and creates empathy.

Photo credit: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xfoH0dQmL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

My cousin sent me a meme describing the sorrow we feel when a novel ends - when we must give up our relationship with a character and in essence, break-up with them.  We walk away and move forward leaving them as a memory in our past.

It was Brooklyn's Eilis that touched her so deeply.   I was hesitant to introduce myself to this heroine's world as  I was less than enthusiastic about my first experience with Colm Toibin, "Sleep", a story in The New Yorker.  But I trusted my cousin.

... And I loved the story!  It is as if Mr. Toibin follows a young girl from Ireland to Brooklyn, and back again, and merely puts to paper what he sees and hears.  There is no narrator "guessing" as to what is in the heroine's head - the author sees how she changes within a situation and, with simplicity, reports it to the reader.  Such a style creates a true intimacy that is not often felt with a character.  Often we are forced to connect with plot alone, but here?  Here we become closer to Eilis than many we feel connected to in our own lives.

This is a love story - of family, of land, of a man and a woman, of faith, of life...  And I will admit there were times I was frustrated with Eilis and her decisions, her actions, and her silences.  I was held in her grip until the last sentence.

Photo credit:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_%28novel%29