Martin Sloane

Michael Redhill
2001

This is Redhill's first novel and it took him something like ten years to write. When your first novel takes you ten years to write, hopefully it'll be pretty good (and I mean actively write, not like that novel you've been writing for ten years where you just tell everyone that you're writing but never actually put pen to paper). So yeah, it's pretty good (and it has a woven plot! if you've read any of these you know that's what I love)

It's good, it's well crafted, it's smart. I didn't really like it. Jolene falls in love with an artist (Martin) who is much older than she is. They seem to be in love, but then Martin leaves her in the middle of the night and she never sees him again. Years later she goes looking for him and unveils bits of his mysterious past. It's good. Good story.

Here's what drives me crazy:
Martin isn't that awesome of a guy. And yeah ok, girls like broken things and want to fix everybody. Ok. But that's boring, and he's not that broken. He's just empty enough to be mysterious and I just don't see the appeal. Jolene is kind of nuts, why did he even go for her? She wallows for years, she loses her job, she goes kind of nuts. Come on girl! Pull yourself together. These two characters are just awful and frustrating, I wanted to rewrite them both - but that was the point.

Here's what is amazing:
This novel delves a lot into story telling, who is telling this story and why. Well, it's Jolene. So that woven plot that is either Jolene's voice or an unknown voice telling Martin's story, is really just Jolene. Wikki What!? So the real question here is how can Jolene know all the intricate details of Martin's life? She can't! What? So she's gotta be making it up. So as she quests after Martin she's learning about what Martin made up, but then because Martin's story is also Jolene's story we don't know if she just made it up and can't remember that it was her! Now we have an unreliable narrator who has a potentially horrific memory!

Redhill also throws in a bunch of ekphrasis (see I done did school) to head up every chapter. These bits of ekphrasis are describing Martin's artwork. The artwork as dates and is formatted like an art show exhibit description, which make them feel like the only solid details in Jolene's messed up narration. The descriptions give solid facts into Martin's life (which you'll get if you go all nuts on the novel and try to figure them out). The ekphrasis weaves in with the narration to show even further inconsistencies in Jolene's narrative.

The inconsistencies jive into Jolene's past and the way that she treats people. Her childhood was crazy messed up and it's easy to see how that would influence her relationship with Martin. So the novel is full of details that will completely drive you mad in a good way, if you're into that kind of thing.

So What's the verdict?
It's amazingly well crafted, with too many layers to talk about here. But the characters drive me freaking crazy! So well crafted, but I wanted to smack both Martin and Jolene in the face the entire time. Frustration in literature is good, but this frustration was too frustrating and it just made me not care. So Redhill gets three lightning bolts and a shurg.

Reviewed by Meg!