Photo by visualpanic
I recently had the good fortune of reading two of Dennis McFarland’s novels. In case others haven’t discovered him yet, let me spend a few lines praising his sense of humor, insight and wisdom.
I read his latest, Letter from Point Clear first and immediately loved his voice. The story is about three adult siblings who have recently lost their father — a difficult man who elicits little grief from his children. The youngest and least stable of the siblings marries a preacher she barely knows, and they move into the “family home” now vacated by the father, but legally belonging to all three siblings. Each of the three siblings are in interesting, complex relationships with each other and with significant others, and all must learn how to find meaning in a life of privilege, as well as how to accept a sibling’s choice of spouse – especially the conservative preacher who judges the homosexuality of his brother-in-law.
The end was a little unsatisfying — and I’m not sure why; I think it may be because the strength of the novel was the character development and not the plot, so the resolution wasn’t important but leaving the characters behind was a little sad; I especially missed Morris. McFarland has a gift for character development and ending the novel truly felt like the end of a friendship.
When I finished the novel, I noticed a blurb that mentioned Prince Edwards as his best-known and best-loved novel, so I tracked it down. Prince Edwards has much more of a distinct and substantial story-line. The novel takes place in 1959 and focuses on the only county in Virginia to refuse to desegregate: Prince Edwards. The town feels so strongly about this issue that they close the public schools and open private ones. However, the historical perspective wasn’t nearly as engaging as the protagonist’s view of it through his 10 year old eyes. Here is an example of how well McFarland blends humor and wisdom: “In the earlier stretches of this time, my grasp of these events was narrow and interior. I recall a slim but critical shift in my personality; I began forming and holding more and more opinions on an increasingly wide range of topics, from the scent of artificial pine to what was the best solution to my parents’ violent and disastrous marriage. Forming an opinion and holding it inside seemed to make me count for something more than I had counted for before. I didn’t distinguish between opinions and beliefs. One was as good as the other, and I mistakenly imagined that a storehouse of opinions could steer a person in times of uncertainty, like a travel guide to a foreign country” (11). Like Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird, the narrator has the advantage of looking back at the events in his childhood and does so with compassion and understanding, and the result is another character the reader hates to leave behind. McFarland is a contemporary voice inheriting the rich legacy of Southern storytelling and its ability to confront the very worst in human nature, encompass that burden with compassion, and then transform it with a sense of humor so that instead of judging others’ past sins, we have a better understanding of ourselves. I strongly recommend that you get to know the Owens from Point Clear first, and then consider tackling Prince Edwards.
