Play Book Tag discussion

I wanted to read another Alice McDermott book on the heels of my first (Faithful) to see how I liked it. In Turtle Moon, the plot moves along well enough with elements of a thriller, but with more depth I guess (as I expect from literary fiction). There's a murder and sort of a "chase scene" but also people struggling with universal human issues, trying to figure out where they fit in the world. I suspect I might have loved this book at some point in my past. There are some nice descriptive passages. (Those of the Florida climate inspired gratitude that I don't live there.) But here's what doesn't work for me in this book: I wanted more information to understand the characters. Why didn't the several marriages mentioned in the story not work? Why didn’t the mother and her son get along? Why were a broken man and a fragile woman drawn to each other? I finished the book, eager to find out what happened, but at the end I still had no answers for why the characters (except possibly Julian) acted as they did. Maybe I want more on-the-nose writing. Maybe it’s the use of the distant, essentially omniscient narrative style here that gets in my way. It seems it forces the author to either “tell” us about the motivations of her characters or leave us guessing. I felt I was observing them from too far away. With any book there's a balance between leaving some room for the reader to use their imagination and satisfying a need to understand what happened and why. The balance here wasn’t right for me. I’m also not crazy about magical realism (unless it’s Isabel Allende!) My knowledge of the craft of fiction is all from self-directed learning --- books and blogs and podcasts -- but I see why beginning authors are warned to avoid this writing style. McDermott is no beginner but the advice seems apt as I try to figure out why I didn’t love this book. It’s all highly subjective, I know, but this is a 3.5 read for me.

Susan, I see your points as to why the book disappointed you. I did enjoy this more than you. As I recall, this was Alice Hoffman's debut book. I think her writing got better with more experience.

Thanks, Holly. You stimulated me to look in Hoffman a bit more. She's been very prolific with at least 30 adult novels plus some YA. And her books are variously categorized as fantasy, magical realism, historical fiction, YA -- among others. Very talented for sure and I won't write her off yet!