Review: A Subtle Grace

After I read her novel Stealing Jenny, Ellen Gable asked for some reviews about her next novel, A Subtle Grace.  I jumped at the chance. Stealing Jenny was a great thriller with a singular oddity -- an unrepentant villain. We don't get many of those.

And then there's A Subtle Grace, whose Amazon flap copy reads as follows

1896, Philadelphia. In this sequel to "In Name Only" (2009, FQP), "A Subtle Grace" continues the story of the wealthy and unconventional O’Donovan Family as they approach the dawn of a new century.



At 19, Kathleen (oldest daughter) is unmarried with no prospects. Fearing the lonely fate of an old maid, her impatience leads to an infatuation with the first man who shows interest. The suave, handsome son of the local police chief seems a perfect match. But will her impulsive manner prevent her from recognizing her true beloved? A disturbing turn of events brings a dark shadow that threatens the life-long happiness she desires.



Dr. Luke Peterson (the family’s new physician) also makes quite an impression on Kathleen. His affection for her leads him to startling revelations: about Kathleen, about his practice and, most importantly, about himself.



Will (oldest son) believes God may be calling him to a religious vocation. Eventually, he discovers the hidden circumstances of his humble beginnings compelling him to embark on a pilgrimage to Rome.



(Note: Although "A Subtle Grace" is a sequel, it can be read as a stand alone book, independently of the first book in the series.)

A Subtle Grace is not my type
of book. It is sappy, the overall plot is fairly predictable (when
the plot begins at all) and the pace is so laid back and leisurely, I
could skip pages at a time and not miss any part of the events, the
character development, or anything of note. In fact, once I did
start skipping parts, I didn’t have to backtrack a single time.

That aside, on its own terms, A Subtle Grace is a solid novel, in a traditional sense. Around
my household, growing up, it out be referred to as a “novel”
novel. As a period romance, there are parts of it that are set up
akin to a Tom Clancy novel, with several threads that are seemingly
unrelated, but interconnected later one. The characters are usually
interesting, the most interesting one being the town doctor. Of
course, they’re very much like real people – meaning that I
wanted to take some of them off to one side and smack some sense into
them, like I do with most people in real life.

Also, we have a proper villain of the
piece, who you spend a good portion of the book just waiting to see
again – mostly because you want to see a stake driven through his
heart. Unlike the typical “villain you love to hate,” like a
Loki, or the villain of House of Cards, this guy is unvarnished evil,
and you just wait for him to be fed to a wood chipper. Having read
Ellen Gable’s thriller Stealing Jenny, I can say for
certainly that she specializes in villains who are particularly
obsessed, evil bastards.

This also has some nice little historical touches, especially with technology, like installing phones or the hotel with a lighting
system so new, it has to post letters to inform the guests that “This
hotel runs on electricity. Please to not attempt to take a match to
the light bulbs. There’s a switch if you want light, thank you.”

Addressing real problems with this is a
shorter matter – “this is not my sort of book” does not
constitute a real problem. Let’s face it, a slightly formulaic plot
and a leisurely pace is most likely not a problem for someone who’s
going to pick up a period piece romance, and if it is, they’re
probably in the wrong fan base.

Nitpick 1: There is a subplot about our
heroine’s brother, and that being a bastard is a problem for
joining the priesthood, but the problem is never explained, merely
dismissed as part of cannon law. The book spent pages over the course
of the book explaining some basic aspects of Catholicism, it could
have spent a few lines fleshing this out.

Nitpick 2: a doctor, at one part of the
book, is held at gunpoint, and he uses the Hippocratic oath as a
reason to not gut the man with a scalpel. Sorry, but self-defense is
not prohibited by the Hippocratic oath.

Nitpick 3: The ellipses in the dialogue
are oddly placed at times. A small matter, but crops up quite often.

THE Problem? This book was about 70
pages too long. And I don't mean the leisurely pace of the story; by
the time I had gotten to around page 300, I had gotten used to that. I
mean that there were several points this book could have
stopped, and the final confrontation was drawn out to beyond my
levels of tolerance. There was a perfect buildup to a final
confrontation, which was a complete fake-out.  That wouldn't have
been a problem, if it weren't followed by a apparently contrived
mechanism that seemed to be designed for the sole purpose of extending the story for no real reason. I liked it, but not so much that I had to have more of it.

End rating: 3/5 stars -- probably 4/5 if you're a fan of the genre. If you are not a fan of the genre, read Stealing Jenny.

"Manly men with brains" masculinity and writing.

In a writing context, what exactly
defines being “manly”? Really, I’m starting to wonder. It’s
a word that’s been tossed around a lot lately: Cedar Sanderson and Sarah Hoyt talked of emasculating women in their SFWA posts, a
writer’s group I’m a part of recently lamented the death of the
“manly male” characters like Dirt Pitt in popular novels. Even A
Pius Man in a review by Robert Bertrand referred to it as “a
book for manly men with brains,” though on the other hand, I've
been praised for my strong female characters, both in private and in public. Both were aliens concepts to me, namely
because I never considered either while I wrote it, the characters
weren't “strong women” or “manly men,” the
characters just … were.

Then again, let’s face it, William
Shakespeare would probably fail a course on his own plays,
considering what people have seen in his own work that he, in all
honesty, probably hadn’t seen himself when he wrote it.



Now, I'm going to presume that the common definition of masculinity will involve men who can beat the crap out of other people. However, physical prowess isn't exactly exclusive to men anymore.



Manliness also includes a willingness to draw a line, hold it, and be willing to defend it, and fight back.  Also not exclusive to men, but few men have ever been pushed around and been considered "manly."  Then again, the ultimate Man, Jesus, did instruct us to go the extra mile when someone's walking all over us, but a "manly male" could take that and make it into "You want to shanghai me into carrying your stuff for a mile? I'll do it for two. Hah, you wuss."



So, two down.  Next would be to discuss men on an emotional level: what to express, how to express them, that sort of thing.



And, since
I mentioned the Bard, Shakespeare has also had some thoughts on
manliness, particularly in MacBeth. After MacDuff is informed
that his family has been slaughtered, he is told to take it like a
man; MacDuff replies that he must also “feel it as a man.” So, I
guess a man actually can be "in touch with his feelings" – feelings
of loss, of love, of filial devotion, as well as rage and homicidal intent.

Recently, my own character was commented on, that I’m a “cool and detached” person. That could be, but
that’s only because I've noted that feelings have to be beaten,
forged, and molded into a proper tool; hot, passionate feelings just
turn into shrapnel, unfocused and wasteful. I like to think I have a
good lock on my passions. I love truth so much, I made a trilogy
dedicated to defending it, and beating back lies about a man who died
before most of my friends and readers were born. Being detached
keeps those passions controlled.

Heck, Jesus has called us to love one
another, not like each other. Which is good for me, because I
can’t stand most people, but will rush to their aid if they truly
needed it (and you thought I was schizophrenic because I’m a writer, didn't you?). Most people who trip over me have
conversations that are so self-centered, I can just smile and nod and
get away with it.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to care
about everything that everyone would tell me. I’d do my best to give
advice and council, and I’d hurt when they’d hurt and fret when
they did … then I concluded that they just wanted attention, and
someone to tell them that they were right and they were perfectly
justified to do whatever it was they wished. Now, I will only invest
myself in a select few.

And let’s face it, you've all seen
me when I become invested in a person. When my best friend (who I
was a bit in love with) burned me, I had a full-on public nervous breakdown, disguised as a writing lessons: emotions varied from painto rage to murder to tears.

So, which is “manly”? The
passionate rage? The hurt? The tears? All of them?  None of them? No idea. My men in The Pius
Trilogy are hurt, get sad, depressed, enraged, and homicidal.

Even in the Facebook conversation that
started this discussion mourned for a manly character who fights,
gets laid, saves the girl, smokes, drinks, but is also educated.
Really? Does that mean James Bond, perfect psychopath, counts?
Spider Robinson once noted Robert Mitchum as a perfect example, but I
never saw the man as more than a moving block of wood. Neither of
them are the sort of man you find in Inigo Montoya of The Princess
Bride.

Manly? Or too much

leather?

Looking at all of the “manly”
characters I can think of, the best I can come up with is being
vaguely detached. At least the ability to be detached. Looking at
men who are manly without being He-Man exaggerated, what is
there: Bond, Montoya, Batman, Tony Stark, all exude “I don’t give
f---,” either about the opinions of others, law (occasionally
morals). Captain America, Thor, Superman, all stand for something,
defying what others think or feel. They are in touch with their own
feelings – honor, patriotism, ethics.

No, I don’t necessarily mean
Alpha dominant bull, because that just seems to lead to macho
stupidity or being a schmuck. But to have the correct level of
self-possessed spirit that says “Yes, I can act independently if
abandoned.” Sure, a manly fellow can fit in with society, any Band
of Brothers sentiment relies on it, but he is not attached at the hip
to society write large.

But all things in balance, please.
Even “sociopaths” who kill in the military can feel the loss of a
friend, feel sad over the loss of a civilian, et al. They love who
they love, and if you mess with them or theirs ... well, let's just say that they don’t
love you. James Bond shows an unnatural level of detachment, caring
about … nothing, really. At the end of the day, attempts to give
James Bond depth fail because he only cares about his job – not any
woman he sleeps with, and his sense of patriotism only seems to go
only as deep as it is his job to defend the country. If one day,
someone ever writes a book where Bond’s failure leads to mass
casualties, his biggest response will be to shrug and treat it like
an unsuccessful chess match.

So, does being a man entail sociopathy?
Well, let’s break that down a bit. In John Ringo’s Under a
Graveyard Sky, two men say that they’re sociopaths because
killing doesn't bother them, and they don’t see the enemy as
people. I don’t find that too strange, since if I’m being shot
at, I’d see the threat, not a person. Little definitions like this
lead some people to say that a sociopath is defined as someone who
merely scares the psychologist. And now that sociopaths come in
flavors (high/low-functioning, genetic, situational), sure, maybe
being a man does involve that on some level, the same way that Autism
Spectrum Disorder has been expanded to cover people who were once
merely assholes.

Sherlock, with Benedict
Cumberbach, is frequently described as a “high-functioning
sociopath,” but is not usually considered manly because he’s so
detached, he borders on being a thinking machine, as was the
original. Yet Martin Freeman’s Watson, in the first episode,
shoots a serial killer with no remorse, and it didn't faze him one
little bit. Psychology has gotten to the point where many would see
Watson as a sociopath, so let’s not get too carried away
with that, shall with?

Heck, Kevin Anderson, the hero of my co-authored novel Codename: Winterborn, has a lot of similar characteristics to all of these "manly" qualities mentioned: rage, love, filial devotion, will stand up for what he believes in, up to and including killing people, will let no one push him around unless he wants to be pushed around ... and one review (who gave it 5-stars) slapped a label on Kevin as a simple psycho.



Is he crazed and damaged in Codename: Winterborn?  Oh, you betcha.  But just calling him a psycho because he has no problem killing people might simplify things just a little too much. Heck, he had no problem killing people before the book started.

At the end of the day, for a literary
character to be manly, yes, he can have feelings – in fact, he must
– but he must also have the right ones, and in the proper degree,
otherwise, he becomes a caricature.   

St. Patrick's Day Blog -- Erin Go Boom

Ah, an oldie, but a goodie.  If you weren't around for this when it first aired, you probably haven't seen it since.



And why am I merely posting a link to it above? Because I'm tapping this blog out on a borrowed laptop while I await a new cooling fan for my primary computer, a 5-year old Dell Vostro 200 PC. Shoot me now.

Music blog: simple gifts

This one is a bit of a twofer, so ... enjoy.



Yeah, I had nothing better to post today. Things are a little busy.