Flesh Wounds

Rating:
Summary: Elegant Writing
Review: A novel of pain and regeneration, of characters surviving life's large garbage days. Cochrane peoples this story of child abuse that spawns child abuse with a style notable for its directness. Namely, he doesn't feel the need to show off. Flaws and all, these characters speak on their own. The dialogue is also relentlessly accurate, a rarity in a time when our fictional conversations rarely sound right.

This novel has its taproot in honesty, and while the plot summary you'll see above might read like an episode of a horrid talk show, Cochrane instead renders a family torn by abuse with elegance and caring. This is a fine book by a fine writer, one who will no doubt present an equally well-done but richer novel his next time out. Buy the book, remember his name

Rating:
Summary: Movie Material
Review: I couldn't help but visualize this book as a movie. Perhaps because the dialogue is so masterfully written, it read to me like a script with beautifully descriptive passages rounding out the setting as a backdrop to the words of the characters. Yet it is what mostly remains unspoken that is so dramatically conveyed as Cochrane bravely addresses the issue of abuse which though not often talked about is so intregal to the lives of the characters. The story itself seems to be a microcosm of society in which abuse is so often dimissed rather than analyzed. This book captures humanity like a Graham Greene novel, one in which we see the power of forgiveness and are left with a hope of redemption really being a possibility alongside the brokeness of people whose lives still remain shattered. The real victims appear to be those who are not yet able to forgive- whether themselves or others. I highly recommend this book as one which will move you and provoke thought while entertaining with it's intriguing story.