A Piece of My Heart (Vintage Contemporaries)

Rating:
Summary: Well-written, interesting characters, no sense of urgency
Review: I really wanted to like this book. It has a lot going for it: two troubled main characters, an intriguing setting (an island on the Mississippi River), some sex, a crotchety old man, and some of the best descriptions of a place you'll ever read. Ford is definitely a writer of power. I felt the importance of the setting in his detailed attention to every tree and rut in the road, yet I couldn't find a strong motivation for the two characters to be there. Robard Hewes is a lost soul, similar to other Ford characters (a lot like Quinn in *The Ultimate Good Luck*, but less self-confident) who goes south for all the wrong reasons. Robard I can sort of understand, but Sam Newel, the law student from Chicago searching for meaning in his life so he doesn't become like his father, just doesn't fit, and once he arrives on the island, he doesn't really DO much, except go on a fateful fishing excursion with the crusty old Mr. Lamb. I enjoyed reading it, but I'd probably not read it again. A little more focus would've greatly improved this first book by a wonderful writer. It should be read by all first time novelists to see how well setting and characterization can be done (and also to see how much a writer learns in comparison to his later work).

Rating:
Summary: Well-written, interesting characters, no sense of urgency
Review: I really wanted to like this book. It has a lot going for it: two troubled main characters, an intriguing setting (an island on the Mississippi River), some sex, a crotchety old man, and some of the best descriptions of a place you'll ever read. Ford is definitely a writer of power. I felt the importance of the setting in his detailed attention to every tree and rut in the road, yet I couldn't find a strong motivation for the two characters to be there. Robard Hewes is a lost soul, similar to other Ford characters (a lot like Quinn in *The Ultimate Good Luck*, but less self-confident) who goes south for all the wrong reasons. Robard I can sort of understand, but Sam Newel, the law student from Chicago searching for meaning in his life so he doesn't become like his father, just doesn't fit, and once he arrives on the island, he doesn't really DO much, except go on a fateful fishing excursion with the crusty old Mr. Lamb. I enjoyed reading it, but I'd probably not read it again. A little more focus would've greatly improved this first book by a wonderful writer. It should be read by all first time novelists to see how well setting and characterization can be done (and also to see how much a writer learns in comparison to his later work).

Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Tour De Force
Review: Richard Ford's first book, A Piece Of My Heart, scored big with reviewers across the country, but has largely been ignored by the reading public.

All the more a pity, since this book deserves a large readership, perhaps even as much or more so than The Sportswriter or Independence Day. If there is a fault with this book, it is that it flows too easily. It is the kind of work that can be devoured in a few hours. It reads so smoothly that it's rich detail can be easily overlooked.

The cinematic quality of this work cannot be understated. The sometimes stark, sometimes lush and haunting landscapes of this novel are so rich in description that they are seen effortlessly and because they flow so easily, the unwary reader is tempted to speed ahead like a traveler on the interstate, driving at breakneck speed through breathtakingly beautiful scenery.

Ford's characters are quirky and so three dimensional that they rise up before the reader with startlingly familiarity. I suspect that Ford loses many of his more urbane readers with the grittiness of these characters--their down home rustication and the sense of danger inherent in their ferocious living of lives from moment to moment.

For those who plunge into this work with abandon (as I did on my first reading), one warning: slow down. Savor the power of each scene. Don't go crashing through from page to page like a tourist in New York with one day to see the Metropolitan Museum. Enjoy each wonderfully crafted scene and avoid the temptation to read through at breakneck speed.

The amazing juxtaposition of whimsy, darkness and doom are quite extraordinary in this work. The plot, ostensibly, revolves around the actions of Robard Hewes, an uneducated but shrewdly obsessed and compulsive character who drives from his dusty desert home in California to his past in Mississippi in pursuit of Buena, a wanton married woman whose siren call is enough to overwhelm Robard with an inexplicable burning desire.

Sam Newell is Hewes opposite. Newell, a severely depressed man down from Chicago on the suggestion of his lover for some ill-advised convalescence as a guest at her grandfather's island hunting camp, is filled with self loathing and unintentionally invites the scorn of almost everyone he encounters. Newell, on the verge of commencing practice as a lawyer has broken down and drifts rudderless throughout the action of this work. Nevertheless, he is an important character and his short musings on his childhood are remarkably evocative and superb and this along with the stark nature of his intellect give insight into the workings of Ford's mind and the detached alienated characters that evolve in his later works.

Mark Lamb (the grandfather), his wife, and TVA (his cook and handyman), constitute an extraordinarily quirky and wonderfully drawn backdrop for a good part of the action in this novel. Lamb is one of the most endearingly cranky old men you will run across in any short novel. The odd domestic scenes that take place on the island are redolent with humor and are brilliantly drawn.

I cannot recomment A Piece Of My Heart too highly. It is a must read for those who appreciate good literature.

Rating:
Summary: A Piece of...
Review: There are a few four-letter words that would fill in the title of this review, but I can't say them on a family-friendly website. I think 'garbage' will suffice. Pointless garbage if you want to be more specific. The only reason it doesn't get 1-star from me is that it's Ford's first novel and I have a tendency to be lenient on debut novels.

The story involves Robard Hewes, the hick living in California, who decides to up and leave his wife to go to Arkansas to find the woman who's been sending him letters for quite some time. There's also (for whatever reason) Sam Newell, a law student in Chicago who's bummed out about life (for whatever reason) and goes to a hunting camp on an island in Mississippi owned by his girlfriend's grandfather. Robard gets a job on that island and at the same time has a brief affair with Buena, the woman who's been writing him and is unhappy with her washed-up career minor league pitcher husband.

Robard was a fun character--gruff, mysterious, and yet driven for some reason to do something even he knew was stupid. I'm not sure why the whole book didn't revolve around him, because Sam Newell served no purpose whatsoever in the story. Ford didn't even bother to follow up on his story, that's how unimportant he was to the plot. Robard is the story, and the point of his story is that sometimes people make dumb choices and have to pay the consequences for them. A good point, but one I already knew from reading Richard Russo's far superior "Nobody's Fool", which I recommend over this.

Mr. Lamb is another interesting character, the wacky old Southern coot with an island not even on the maps. Mr. Lamb pays Robard to drive around and run any poachers off his private kingdom while he goes out fishing with his "telephone", an electrical device that has grave consequences for Mr. Lamb. Mrs. Lamb always had a certain amount of mystery attached to her, because at first she just sits around listening to the radio, but later we find out she handles a lot of the business affairs. TVA is the black servant who would be a horrible racial stereotype except for an undercurrent of resentment towards his employer. Buena is a snotty brat and it soon becomes clear to Robard what me, as the reader, figured out long ago and that is she's not worth crossing the country and risking his life for--Helen of Troy she is not.

I never did quite understand the point of the interludes with Sam and his father. Sam was so unimportant that I'm not sure why bringing up scattered episodes (most little more than a page or a few paragraphs) of selling starch in the South was necessary. It didn't add much in my mind to Sam or to the story in general. Like Sam himself, those episodes could have been done away with.

There are some nice descriptions, but otherwise Ford's writing itself is what brings down this book. For some reason he had a fear of pronouns when writing this book that manifested itself in ambiguous "He"s. For example, Ford might say something like, "Mr. Lamb sprinkled salt on his food. He pushed away from the table." Now you'd think the "he" in the second sentence means Mr. Lamb, since he was the subject of the last sentence, but no, it refers to Robard or Sam, depending on if the part of the book focuses on Robard or Sam. That led me to a lot of confusion and I'm still trying to figure out why an editor didn't take umbrage with it. As with Ford's "The Ultimate Good Luck", I also had trouble following some of the action because the details were sketchy about what was happening, such as how (and why) Sam ended up in the water in the beginning of the story.

I wouldn't recommend this book, because Ford does go on to better things like "The Sportswriter" and the Pulitzer-winning "Independence Day". Those demonstrated how much the author developed as a writer and are much more worthy of your time. However, if you're a fan of Richard Ford, (I'm not) then you'll want to read this as a curiosity to know where the author got his start.

Rating:
Summary: A Piece of...
Review: There are a few four-letter words that would fill in the title of this review, but I can't say them on a family-friendly website. I think 'garbage' will suffice. Pointless garbage if you want to be more specific. The only reason it doesn't get 1-star from me is that it's Ford's first novel and I have a tendency to be lenient on debut novels.

The story involves Robard Hewes, the hick living in California, who decides to up and leave his wife to go to Arkansas to find the woman who's been sending him letters for quite some time. There's also (for whatever reason) Sam Newell, a law student in Chicago who's bummed out about life (for whatever reason) and goes to a hunting camp on an island in Mississippi owned by his girlfriend's grandfather. Robard gets a job on that island and at the same time has a brief affair with Buena, the woman who's been writing him and is unhappy with her washed-up career minor league pitcher husband.

Robard was a fun character--gruff, mysterious, and yet driven for some reason to do something even he knew was stupid. I'm not sure why the whole book didn't revolve around him, because Sam Newell served no purpose whatsoever in the story. Ford didn't even bother to follow up on his story, that's how unimportant he was to the plot. Robard is the story, and the point of his story is that sometimes people make dumb choices and have to pay the consequences for them. A good point, but one I already knew from reading Richard Russo's far superior "Nobody's Fool", which I recommend over this.

Mr. Lamb is another interesting character, the wacky old Southern coot with an island not even on the maps. Mr. Lamb pays Robard to drive around and run any poachers off his private kingdom while he goes out fishing with his "telephone", an electrical device that has grave consequences for Mr. Lamb. Mrs. Lamb always had a certain amount of mystery attached to her, because at first she just sits around listening to the radio, but later we find out she handles a lot of the business affairs. TVA is the black servant who would be a horrible racial stereotype except for an undercurrent of resentment towards his employer. Buena is a snotty brat and it soon becomes clear to Robard what me, as the reader, figured out long ago and that is she's not worth crossing the country and risking his life for--Helen of Troy she is not.

I never did quite understand the point of the interludes with Sam and his father. Sam was so unimportant that I'm not sure why bringing up scattered episodes (most little more than a page or a few paragraphs) of selling starch in the South was necessary. It didn't add much in my mind to Sam or to the story in general. Like Sam himself, those episodes could have been done away with.

There are some nice descriptions, but otherwise Ford's writing itself is what brings down this book. For some reason he had a fear of pronouns when writing this book that manifested itself in ambiguous "He"s. For example, Ford might say something like, "Mr. Lamb sprinkled salt on his food. He pushed away from the table." Now you'd think the "he" in the second sentence means Mr. Lamb, since he was the subject of the last sentence, but no, it refers to Robard or Sam, depending on if the part of the book focuses on Robard or Sam. That led me to a lot of confusion and I'm still trying to figure out why an editor didn't take umbrage with it. As with Ford's "The Ultimate Good Luck", I also had trouble following some of the action because the details were sketchy about what was happening, such as how (and why) Sam ended up in the water in the beginning of the story.

I wouldn't recommend this book, because Ford does go on to better things like "The Sportswriter" and the Pulitzer-winning "Independence Day". Those demonstrated how much the author developed as a writer and are much more worthy of your time. However, if you're a fan of Richard Ford, (I'm not) then you'll want to read this as a curiosity to know where the author got his start.