Genre: Contemporary
Fiction
Description:
Lizette is a gifted abstract painter with severe personality
issues—perhaps bi-polar—although I don’t believe this was stated. Pressured to
achieve as a child, when her artist mother committed suicide something snapped
inside Lizette. Estranged from her father, she drifts into bad company, and
makes unwise life-choices. The story follows Lizette as she struggles with
mental illness and searches for meaning in her life. Although set in the
Seventies, no attachment with that era is required to connect with this story.
Author:
“A novelist, journalist and photographer, Kate Campbell grew up in San
Francisco and has lived and worked throughout California and the West. Adrift in the Sound, was a finalist
for New York's 2011 Mercer Street Books Literary Prize. Campbell's
environmental and political writing appears regularly in newspapers and
magazines throughout the U.S. She lives in Sacramento and, in addition to writing
fiction and poetry, publishes the Word Garden blog.” Learn more about her on
her blog.
Appraisal:
I read because I love to lose myself in another world and experience
life vicariously through someone else’s eyes. Also, as an aspiring writer, I
read to learn. For me, reading Adrift in the Sound was tantamount to attending
a fiction writing master class.
Tactile scene settings sucked me into a story as multi-layered as one
of Lizette’s beautifully described oil paintings. Ms. Campbell colors her
scenes with fine details, often transforming the settings into another
character to add emotion. For example, after an argument with her father,
Lizette turns her back on him and the house and takes the path in the rain
toward the small cabin her mother used as her artists’ studio. Lizette
perceives the cabin like this: “Two big windows stared into the tangled garden,
watching the house through rain-streaked eyes.” Or her view of the car ferry
that will take her to Orcas Island in the Puget Sound, where much of the story
unfolds: “The wide-bodied boat nudged the dock, bounced against the pylons,
settled into its berth like a lumbering beast nestling into a safe burrow.” Or
the way the ocean appears to her: “The afternoon sun scattered silver sequins
across the water.” I confess I have a ton more highlights on my Kindle; so many
I had to stop myself. Unable to choose which to use in the review, I simply
chose the first three—they’re all exceptional.
Lizette’s world is populated by a cast of complex, multi-faceted
characters. Many are unpleasant. All were real to me. A brutal sexual assault
early in the story permanently scars Lizette and scarred this reader along with
her. It happened because she takes crazy chances and trusts the wrong people.
But don’t see her as a weakling. On a number of occasions she does significant
harm to those whom she perceives as a threat. Although, as I watched Lizette
become a danger to others, I was never quite sure of her intentions. That’s a
measure of how off-balance the author kept me, and how hard I was rooting for
Lizette.
Lizette’s affinity for the native Indians who live on Orcas and form
her support group provides more wonderful characters whose lifestyle grounds
the story in history and in nature. I have no connection with Native Indians or
their customs, but I found their lives and beliefs and plain commonsense added
to the palette of an already colorful story.
The novel is a deep, slow burn, and not without humor. One particular
scene involving a large snake and an unpleasant junkie had me laughing so loud
I woke my wife (I read at night). A larger-than-life character--self-described
poet, Toulouse--is described in the eyes of Lizette’s friend, Marian thusly:
“Toulouse moved off with a flourish, tipping a goodbye from the rim of his
foolish hat. Marian watched him go, his self-importance shoved up his ass like
a mop handle.”
Complex, troubled, and gifted, Lizette connects with the natural world
on such a deep level that she pulled me along until I stood beside her
marveling at the natural beauty of an ocean wave, or the fearsome power of the
killer whales as they hunt in the Sound, or the subtle simplicity of an old
Indian woman dancing in a mask of feathers and bear skin. She broke my heart as
we watched a seal taken by a predator, or a pet dog injured. I know, as she
does, it’s natural. You can’t interfere, you can’t help—but still, you share
the stab of her guilt.
With more “Oh, didn’t see that coming” moments than I had any right to
expect, Adrift in The Sound is the best book I’ve read in a long time.
Check it out. You won’t regret it.
FYI:
Added for
Reprise Review: Adrift in
the Sound by Kate Campbell was a nominee in the Contemporary/General
Fiction category for B&P 2014 Readers' Choice Awards. Original review ran
July 24, 2013.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No typos to mention. Some graphic scenes and bad language (used
appropriately).
Rating:
***** Five Stars
Reviewed
by: Pete Barber
Approximate
word count: 90-95,000 words
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