Singing Boy A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Dennis McFarland Emily Zeller Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Singing Boy A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Dennis McFarland Emily Zeller Audible Studios Books
Bestselling author Dennis McFarland's masterful novel about three people's struggles to reclaim their lives in the wake of unfathomable tragedy.
In a moment of senseless violence, Malcolm Vaughn's life is ripped away from him, leaving his wife and child to make sense of the shattered existence that remains. Sarah, a lab scientist and Malcolm's widow, retreats into herself, refusing to return to work when even the most mundane activities require enormous effort.
Malcolm's son, Harry, just eight-years-old, goes cold, detaching from the grief that is rippling around him. Meanwhile, Vietnam vet Deckard Jones, Malcolm's best friend, is forced to come to terms with yet another loss. Sarah, Harry, and Deckard must each find a way to go on while everything around them appears to be crumbling.
Stunning and elegant, Singing Boy is a richly drawn audiobook of mourning, remembrance, and recovery, and a nuanced look at three individuals' slow march toward healing.
Singing Boy A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Dennis McFarland Emily Zeller Audible Studios Books
This is an easy, well-written read...Characters are fairly engaging and the story is interesting...but the story didn't pull me. I found the book easy to put down even though it is nicely written. I think a sense of cliche and a tone that sometimes felt preachy broke my interest; just a touch overdone. But for a novel that doesn't demand too much it does give a lot. It's a novel I would recommend to a friend.Product details
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Singing Boy A Novel (Audible Audio Edition) Dennis McFarland Emily Zeller Audible Studios Books Reviews
In the Boston area, Malcolm and Sarah Vaughn accompanied by their second grade son Harry were driving home from dinner when the Corvair in front of them sat at the green light, not once but twice. Malcolm went to see if the driver was okay, but was shot and killed for his Good Samaritan efforts. Harry and Sarah watch their beloved father and husband die in front of their shocked eyes.
The aftermath of the random act of violence stuns Sarah and Harry. At the hospital Sarah calls Malcolm's best friend Deckard Jones, who cannot cope any better than the two survivors. Sarah finds herself increasingly alone, as she cannot hide her grief in her work as a chemical engineering professor. Harry suffers nightmares that haunt him during the day hiding it with apathy and withdrawal while crying and wetting his bed at night. Deck returns to Nam where he seen death and suicide as the norm. The near future for this trio is at best bleak, helpless, and unrelenting, as they must cope with tragedy by themselves.
As he did with THE MUSIC ROOM, Dennis McFarland provides his audience with an angst-filled tale of what emotionally and psychologically happens to the survivors. The tragedy occurs in the first chapter with the main story line centering on how each individual copes (or in many cases, not deal with) the sudden death of a loved one. Although a bit too melodramatic at times as secondary players also suffer and react in various ways to Malcolm's murder, Mr. McFarland has written a superb psychological thriller that emphasizes the feelings not the action.
Harriet Klausner
This is an impressive novel.
A terrible, the terrible, thing happens to a family of three perfect people, Malcolm, Sarah, and Harry. (And one of Singing Boy's few flaws is that Malcolm and, particularly, Harry are, in fact, just too conventionally perfect in their described physical beauty.) For Malcolm, life is suddenly over; Sarah and Harry must get through that sudden new reality without the presence of the one who would have been best able to help them cope. The fourth main character, Desmond, is decidedly unperfect, marred by Vietnam and sinking overweight into middle age. As the improbable closest friend of Malcolm, he too is drawn into the inconsolable grief of isolation, anger and estrangement. Eventually, there is some welcome leavening, though this concluding section of the novel is less convincing than what has come before.
McFarlane has a real skill in taking an unusual action and making it believable. For example, early in the novel, a doctor, seeing guilt in Sarah, explains that no action on the scene of the murder could have saved Malcolm. "And then Dr. Ives did a surprising, undoctorly thing. She closed the door and stepped forward toward Sarah, holding out her arms, and said, 'Come here, dear, come here.'" The two women sit on the floor and talk and then the doctor, with a trick knee, asks Sarah to help her stand. It is an improbable scene, but McFarlane's direct, almost austere, writing sells it. He also nails in four words that point in new romance when a lover just wants to show off his or her body, "...naked, as is his wont, he's lying on his stomach..." Aside from the story, watching McFarlane hit those telling details time and again is one of the great pleasures of Singing Boy.
I'd wanted to read "Singing Boy" for the past three years. Trouble is, author Dennis McFarland's novel is shelved at my public library, right next to Ian McEwan's novels. So after reading the whole, more well-known, Ian McEwan library, I finally got around to McFarland's Singing Boy.
This is a novel about relationships which form during a grieving period. A widow and her son witnessed a violent crime which killed the husband/father, the rest of the novel is about how they come to terms with this.
The father's best friend was Deckard, who is black. Will white-bread Sarah and black best friend have a romantic relationship?
Romance junkies will be very disappointed.
(SPOILERS)
There is no romance in this novel. Even the Police Officer who quits the case in order to romance the widow, is rejected because Sarah is too filled with grief to get involved with anyone.
There's not much action, suspense, or plot twists either. The crime is never solved. But, that's ok because the whole theme of the book is about looking for closure that's actually available to you, not grasping at what isn't. In that sense, this novel really works as a sort of---grief manual, more than any other, even non-fiction grief books I've read. Sarah, the widow, choose not to undergo traditional mental health/ grief therapy. Sarah rejects that and even loses her temper with a psychiatrist over the telephone. Again, this novel really highlights alternate forms of grieving over death, and gives very realistic detail about what it's like for an 8-year-old son to lose his father.
I would have liked a stronger setting, especially since mother, Sarah, and son, Harry, seek solice in nature, the ocean etc... We never really find out what ocean that is...I'm assuming it's the Eastern seaboard. Very vague in terms of setting.
But, I can't quibble with the very intimately drawn characterizations that are detailed, in depth, or the expressive, poignant writing.
I loved the first few chapters of this book. Mid-novel, both the plot and the prose became more mundane and the characters more one-dimensional. To top it off, I hated the ending, especially an inexplicable plot development involving the supernatural(!).
Not one of my favorites
This is an easy, well-written read...Characters are fairly engaging and the story is interesting...but the story didn't pull me. I found the book easy to put down even though it is nicely written. I think a sense of cliche and a tone that sometimes felt preachy broke my interest; just a touch overdone. But for a novel that doesn't demand too much it does give a lot. It's a novel I would recommend to a friend.
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