Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates

Published by Mysterious Press on January 8, 2013 

Joyce Carol Oates writes about horrors that none of us want to imagine, and does it with such seductive prose we can't stop reading. Yet Oates' great talent is to find the horrific in both the commonplace and in the unthinkable. Daddy Love begins with a momentarily misplaced car that leads to a child's barely contained panic and a mother's sense of failure, a small horror that evolves into the larger horror of child abduction.

Part one takes place in 2007. Dinah Whitcomb has invested "all of her volcanic Mommy love" in her only child, Robbie. She strives to make every moment a learning experience for her five-year-old son. She faults herself when she feels tired, because a happy mother should always feel strong. Later she will blame herself for letting go of Robbie's hand when Robbie is snatched from her. Although she is faultless -- the abductor strikes her, first with a fist and then, when she runs after him, with a van -- Dinah feels "the defeat of her life as a mother."

The first four chapters tell the same brief story, each from a slightly different perspective, adding or subtracting facts, revealing more of Dinah's life, her sense of connection with her husband and son. In chapter five, time again begins to move forward. But can life really move forward for someone who has been as badly damaged, both physically and emotionally, as Dinah?

In the chapters that follow, Oates changes the perspective, allowing the reader to follow Robbie and his kidnapper. Oates reveals the demented mind of Daddy Love with the same skill that makes her portrayal of Dinah's tormented mind so convincing. It is nonetheless disappointing that Oates chose to make the character so purely evil, when a more nuanced approach -- a sex offender who struggles against urges he can't control, as is usually the case -- would have been less obvious.

Part two takes the reader to 2013. Robbie, now known as Gideon Cash, is in sixth grade. His true history, unknown to the teachers who believe he is Daddy Love's autistic son, is reflected only in his macabre drawings. Perspective changes again as the reader sees the world through Robbie's eyes. And as she does with Dinah, Oates enters Robbie's mind with uncommon insight. She presents a more subtle view of Robbie than is typical in fictional portrayals of abuse victims. Robbie's personality and behavior provide some of the novel's most thought-provoking moments.

Although Oates' prose is always first-rate, it doesn't soar to the same height in Daddy Love as it does in her best work. The story isn't particularly innovative. It is, in fact, too predictable to have the impact Oates probably intended. After the strong opening chapters, I felt let down by the pedestrian path that the plot follows.

The characters, as a reader expects from Oates, are fully developed and completely convincing. On the other hand, while Oates often paints portraits of victims, the characters in Daddy Love are not as memorable as those some of her other fiction: they evoke sympathy in ways that are just too easy, too predictable. To her credit, however, Oates avoids coating her characters in sugar. She understands that people rarely respond to tragedy in ways that make them noble and likable, as so many writers would have us believe. Dinah wouldn't be the ideal spokeswoman for mothers of abducted children; her connection with reality is tenuous, her fragility is unnerving. Dinah's husband realizes that he's lost perspective, that he's defined his entire life by a single catastrophic event, but he's powerless to change. Although these aren't Oates' best creations, it is for the characters rather than the plot that I recommend Daddy Love.

Be warned: Some scenes involving Daddy Love and Robbie are disturbing, and while none of them are described in graphic detail, sensitive readers should be cautioned that child abuse is very much a part of the book's content. There are also a couple of chapters that will make dog lovers cringe. Oates has never been a writer who shelters her readers from the darkest realities of life.  She does not do so here.

RECOMMENDED

White Dog Fell from the Sky by Eleanor Morse

Published by Viking on January 3, 2013 

White Dog Fell from the Sky begins with a startling scene.  A hearse stops on a dusty road.  Isaac Muthethe’s body is removed from a coffin and laid on the ground.  When Isaac revives, a white dog is sitting next to him.  He is relieved to discover that he is in Botswana.  Formerly a medical student in South Africa, Isaac became a follower of Stephen Biko’s movement to end apartheid.  Isaac fled after officers of the South African Defense Force murdered his friend.

In Botswana, Isaac searches for work in an affluent neighborhood where foreigners hire servants and gardeners. The white dog follows faithfully as he goes from door to door. He eventually finds employment as a gardener for an American woman named Alice, whose marital woes seem inconsequential compared to Isaac's problems. Isaac understands that "the bitter heart eats its owner," but he cannot forget the hardships endured by his family. Early in the novel the reader wonders whether Isaac will join the armed resistance against the South African Defense Force, particularly after its members enter Botswana and kill people who are close to him. Unfortunately, some choices are out of Isaac's hands.

The novel shines when it focuses on Isaac. He is a remarkable young man, caring and selfless, forced into a life of hardship and confusion. The novel's shine is tarnished when Alice's mundane problems come to the forefront. Alice is something of a twit. She feels no desire for her husband ("her body felt nothing for his") and tells him so, but seems surprised when he has an affair. She spends a good deal of the novel fretting about her life while showing little inclination to improve it.

Unfortunately, Isaac all but disappears for a large part of the novel and Alice's story becomes the dominant one. Alice meets a fellow named Ian who wants to cut the fences that are harming the nation's wildlife   Despite her generally low opinion of men, she immediately falls for Ian, then falls away in an overly sensitive reaction to something she overhears, then is madly in love with him, all within the space of 24 hours. Why Ian thinks she's worth pursuing in unclear, but after being with her for a day he can't live without her. Their love story is predictably chaotic. Ian is no prize, as he quickly proves, but by working to document the vanishing culture of the San, he is at least trying to accomplish something meaningful while he's in Africa. Had the entire Alice and Ian section been excised from the novel, nothing of value would have been lost. When Alice (minus Ian) resumes center stage, there is very little left worth reading about. After Isaac finally resurfaces, he reignites the story's spark, but it comes too late to redeem the novel.

Although it is obvious that Eleanor Morse once lived in Botswana, descriptions of the country read as if they were cribbed from a Rough Guide. Despite Morse's fluid writing style, the country doesn't come alive; the atmosphere isn't vivid. The historical information about the San is interesting but it reads like an article in National Geographic. The discussion of the San comes across as academic, rather than the passionate, first-person account we would expect to hear from Ian if he were a real person.

The image of the white dog is interesting ("White Dog knew things from the other world, things that most dogs don't know") but the symbolism of White Dog's steadfast devotion and patience is a bit forced. I think the novel is trying to deliver a message but I'm not sure what it is. Good things come to dogs who wait? Life is tragic for everyone? Love is complicated? It's better to be in love than to try to save the world? Ian's revelation in a moment of danger -- "without love, there's nothing" -- is awfully trite. The attempt to equate Alice's life with Isaac's, because they both "lost something" and feel empty, is ludicrous.

Ultimately, White Dog Fell from the Sky strikes me as a marvelous novel married to a mediocre novel.  Since the mediocre novel dominates, I cannot recommend the work as a whole with any enthusiasm.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Happy New Year!

Ratlines by Stuart Neville

Published by Soho Crime on January 2, 2013 

Three men have been assassinated: a Belgian and a Norwegian who, having allied themselves with the Reich, came to Ireland as refugees, and a German who worked for the SS. A note left in a victim's pocket suggests that the killer will soon be coming for Otto Skorzeny, formerly of the SS (a character who is borrowed from the real world). With President Kennedy about to visit Ireland, the Irish government can afford no political unpleasantness. The Directorate of Intelligence assigns Albert Ryan to investigate the killings. As Ryan pursues that task, the killings continue; a Breton who fought for Germany becomes the next person selected to deliver a message to Skorzeny. When it becomes clear that someone close to Skorzeny has betrayed him by acting as an informant, Ryan and Skorzeny are in a race to find the rat. Also putting pressure on Ryan to deliver information is a Mossad agent named Weiss who eventually becomes one of the novel's central characters.

The question of Irish neutrality during the war is directly addressed in a discussion between Ryan and a rabbi, but it provides a fascinating subtext that pervades the novel. Ryan is not a popular guy in his home town, in part because his family is Protestant, in part because he fought for the British during World War II -- the surest route he could find to leave home. In the eyes of many, he allied himself with his nation's enemy. Now he is being asked to ally himself with a former Nazi. Ryan's divided loyalties make him a more interesting character than is common in thrillers.

Weiss adds another layer of intrigue when he tries to exploit Ryan's sense of conflict for his own ends. Amidst the many competing agendas, the truth is obscured, at least for awhile, leaving Ryan even more unclear as to where his duty of loyalty may lie.

The plot is mildly complex but easy to follow. I wouldn't call it convoluted. It turns on a surprising twist that comes about two-thirds of the way into the story -- surprising but, I thought, credible. Stuart Neville creates a dark and gritty atmosphere while populating the novel with the kind of grim, morally questionable characters who serve as a perfect foil for Ryan. Action scenes are nicely interspersed with scenes of political intrigue.

Occasional moments of melodrama mar the story, and the characterization of Skorzeny is a bit over-the-top, but both of those are common flaws in modern thrillers, and neither is so pronounced as to trouble me. The ending, while satisfying, is a little too neat. On the whole, though, Ratlines is enjoyable and, at least on occasion, thought-provoking. That's more than I can say about most thrillers.

RECOMMENDED

Trouble Is My Name by Stephen Marlowe

First published in 1956; published digitally by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media on December 18, 2012 

Stephen Marlowe was a prolific author who wrote under a variety of pen names. He attached his real name (Milton Lesser) to a few science fiction novels that are all but forgotten. His detective fiction is largely remembered for his creation of Chester Drum, a private investigator based in Washington, D.C. Trouble is My Name, a Drum novel, was first published in 1956. The story takes place in that time frame.

During the war, the O.S.S. supplied gold bars to fund a partisan resistance group in Germany. The responsible O.S.S. officers, Fred Severing and Kevin Keogh, disagreed about whether the gold should go to a group of Bavarians or a group affiliated with the Russians. Then Keogh died and the gold disappeared. Years later, for reasons that remain murky until the novel's end, Severing, now a congressman and a probable vice presidential candidate, is back in Germany.

Chester Drum travels to Germany in search of Severing, who has displeased his party by disappearing without explanation. To find Severing, Drum needs to speak to Wilhelm Rust, a war criminal who has served his sentence, but the interview is interrupted by gunfire. The Streicher twins, entertainers who double as killers, are after Rust, as are the West German security police, Rust's son, and Keogh's daughter Patty, who wants Rust to explain how her father died. Drum, naturally, is caught in the middle.

Drum is the kind of private detective who dominated noir fiction in the 1940s and 1950s. He's bright, tough, and cranky. He oozes integrity. You have to wonder how any of these guys made a living. They were always working for free, doing what needed to be done because it was the right thing to do, disdainfully ripping up checks from clients who tried to fire them.

Drum's biggest problem is that "the right thing to do" isn't always clear. He wants to be on the side of the angels, but someone stole the gold and someone is willing to murder to recover it. Is Severing an angel, a devil, or a pawn?

The set-up is interesting and credible. Marlowe's capable prose moves the story forward at a steady pace, leading to an extended action scene that (unlike many modern thrillers) is also credible. The conclusion is pure noir and quite satisfying.

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