There's something that happens when you pick up a book published through a major publishing house - the reader trusts and has faith the book will meet certain expectations. The book will be of a particular caliber, and all kinks will have been ironed out. Slipping into the storied world will be seamless and easy for the reader. One doesn't always find that in self-published works. Yet, with After Dad, Ralph Cohen has created a novel that has come closer to a tightly-packaged big company produced piece than most other self-published books I have read.
Cohen exhibits an astute talent for the craft of writing. After Dad is a heartfelt novel about an American family in the '60s following the sudden death of their husband and father. Without dipping a single toe into a riptide of sentimentality, this story is observant, emotional, and character-driven. The influence and presence of Frank Kovacek posthumously in the lives of his grieving family is portrayed with creativity and patience.
Each chapter focuses on one family member at a time - sometimes in a third person narration, first person at other times. Some of my favorite chapters concerned Toby, the son so young when he looses his father. Tall tales - cowboys and ball players - are woven with great skill into the perceptions of a lost and lonely young man.
When I talk about this book, I tell people it should be in the hands of an editor at a big city publishing house. I also tell them that if I were the editor of said publishing house, with this book in my hands, I would praise Cohen... and tell him to give me something else. Or at the very least change a few things in After Dad. One being the numerous scenes of sexuality - some are intimate, some of them are graphic and distressing. The affect of the story is lost in the effect of such scenes. Such events can, and do, occur, but it was too much. I also found the addition of Edgar/Eddie (assistant director of a funeral home) as an important character merely an attempt to flesh out the story. I can see why Cohen put him there, but I do not feel he needs to be. He disrupts the flow.
And the last thing that stuck out to me is the "why". Why do we care so much about this family? Why should we spend 300+ pages learning about them? Why are the Kovaceks a novel unto themselves? The inherent purpose of this book is not obvious. But I must admit, the quality of writing is so fantastic, there were times I did not care to answer that question.
All that aside, Ralph Cohen is a novelist to be discovered and given the opportunity to stretch and find what he can add to our literary world. He is already so much further than many other new authors.
This book was kindly provided by the author for review.
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This review can also be read at The Mookse and the Gripes.
First Line: "In the damp late spring of 1985, Jelly picked up the handset of her pink plastic Trimline phone and the dial tone hummed in her ear."
Last Line: "But she cried as she sealed the envelope, because for a moment she thought she might have gone a different way."
When I was a little girl, my parents had Reader's Digest Condensed books on a cheap metal shelf, that bowed in the middle under the weight of partial stories. I am always reticent about pieces pulled from a larger work - they usually feel flat and leave me disappointed.
This time, however, not only did I enjoy this piece on its own, I am looking forward to reading the whole when it comes out next year. I want more, but not because something was lacking here. Rather, this tale was so complete that there must be more to discover about Jelly. There must be a further ending that answers the ending we find here.
"Jelly" is how the narrator addresses the protagonist, a woman named Nicole. And as the story begins, I am brought into a Doris Day-like film but with real true, non-comedic seduction. Jelly lures and controls men through a "pink plastic Trimline phone". She knows what she is doing - how long a conversation should last, how to listen to what the man is saying on the other end of the line, how to hear what he truly wants her to hear yet isn't saying. She is in control. That is, until she dials Jack's number.
For the first time, Jelly finds the intimate distance of the phone to be too much. The phone is, indeed, "a weapon of intimacy". The con artist finds herself conned by love itself. But this isn't THE TWIST. There's more. And when Dana Spiotta dropped it down in front me, I was truly surprised. For it wasn't unbelievable, but I was unprepared. I was lured in by the seduction of minute and gorgeous details, unabashed storytelling - lulled by the process of the con and the process of fiction. I was caught unawares.
I cannot stop thinking about this piece and I cannot soften the affect it had on my heart. This is not a condensed book, I assure you. Like Jack, I fell for Jelly's enticements, and am anxious to see more of her.
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Christmas is one of my favorite times of year... and of course, it demands Christmas books.
Here are (only) five of my (many) favorites:
- The Homecoming - Earl Hamner, Jr
- The Snowman - Raymond Briggs
- The Christmas Sweater - Glenn Beck
- Miracle on 34th Street - Valentine Davies
- Little House on the Prairie (the chapter titled "Santa Claus") - Laura Ingalls Wilder
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Read the review of
Crenshaw here.
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