Jim the Boy : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: a fairytale for slow children
Review: After reading Tony Earley's story collection Here We Are in Paradise, I expected a clever and cleverly written first novel, not terribly deep but entertaining. Instead, Jim the Boy is a bland and episodic and schmaltzy tale that never rings true. The book tries so hard to be heartwarming and simple that only a child could take it at face value, and a child that knows nothing about life--and certainly not life in the depression South. A startlingly unambitious and self-congratulatory book, filled with nostalgia for a place that never existed. I can't think of a supposedly literary book with less in it. The prose is supposed to be understated and poignant, but there's nothing underneath it. Jim the Boy is the literary equivalent of The Emperor's New Clothes, and makes the reader ask: what happened to the guy that wrote "Charlotte"?

Rating:
Summary: Warm
Review: I appreciate Tony Earley's craft, his simple, yet keen prose, masterfully guided. Yet, Jim the Boy is a novel in which lofty, sentimentalized ideals outweigh and ultimately obscure the characters. What resonated with me after reading the book was the unrecognizable face of Jim as a real boy.

Rating:
Summary: A great American novel
Review: Tony Earley's novel Jim the Boy is simply the best novel I have read so far this year. Its beautifully shaped chapters, wonderfully spare language, clearly wrought characters, and heart breaking poignancy, show real craft. I can't wait to re-read it, savour it, and share it.

Rating:
Summary: Thin and disappointing
Review: After reading Tony Earley's exciting stories in Here We Are in Paradise, I expected a much stronger first novel. In fact, Jim the Boy barely counts as a first adult novel. The book seems to have been written for younger children (its simplistic piety would insult teenage readers.) It's sentimental to the extreme, giving us an idyllic depression South that never existed, comforting as it might feel to some readers. There's no coherent storyline, just a string of events with no tension. The writing is supposed to be luminous and understated but is just painfully plain, with nothing under the surface. It's the literary equivalent of the Emperor's new clothes. A great disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: A book for kids, not adults
Review: This is a pleasant, rather hokey coming-of-age tale that seems addressed to kids of 11 or 12, not to grownups. I don't understand why this isn't being marketed as a children's book, as it really has little to hold an adult reader's interest. The plot is very familiar and sentimental, and the writing is clear, uncluttered, and plain but not interesting in its own right. Buy it for your school-age son, but not for your father.

Rating:
Summary: A pleasant but not inspiring read
Review: A big fan of Tony Earley's short stories, I could hardly wait for his first novel to come out. But I was disappointed. Though it is certainly a fine book, it felt a little thin, more like a stringing together of short stories than a novel. Even so, it is a pleasant read. And I like Tony Earley so much that I feel terrible not giving him a better review! I am sure his next book will be awesome.

Rating:
Summary: Something Fancy
Review: Tony Earley once told me, "Anyone can use a long, fancy word. I'd rather use simple language and do something fancy with it." In his debut novel, Jim the Boy, Earley accomplishes this goal. His language is admirably straightforward, yet his metaphors are complex and carefully constructed. The historical and cultural backdrop of the novel, Depression-era North Carolina, is accurately and compassionately portrayed. The characters of the book are richly developed; I hope to hear more of their stories in Earley's future work. Jim the Boy is a breath of fresh air in the literary atmosphere. I reccomend it to readers of all ages and interests.

Rating:
Summary: Depression childhood compassionately and wisely recounted
Review: Tony Earley's "Jim the Boy" is a pitch-perfect, marvelously told story of Jim Glass, Jr.'s tenth year of life in remote Aliceville, North Carolina during the early part of the Great Depression. This is an elegant, direct novel, written from the point-of-view of the ten-year old who is just beginning to glimpse at the challenges and perplexing questions with which adults grapple throughout their lives. It is a poignant novel as well, reminding us that simple truths which revolve around family life ring majestically and timelessly. It is a testimonial to the dignity of the human condition, as well, as the novel's protagonist, his mother and her three brothers (who become surrogate fathers to Jim) understand, without ever saying so, that a strong family can withstand poverty, deprivation, and even the most cruel circumstance...the loss of a husband and father.

Earley's style is somewhat epigramatic, each chapter containing not only action which advances the plot, but a moral epiphany that encourages Jim's social and personal growth. These growing awarenesses, however, are not pat or false in emotional tone. Jim's three uncles assume their responsibilities to their sister and her son with quiet dignity and resolve; Jim's mother has suffered terribly with the loss of her one love in life, and in a series of remarkable scenes and letters, she shows her commitment to her life's decisions with enormous impact.

Jim, too, must confront some of the baser parts of his personality. When competitive drive leads him to become arrogant and at times insensitive to the needs of others, his uncles, by word and action, instruct him to the ways of modesty and interdependence. As well, Jim is forced to confront family ghosts and the spectre of polio directly, but only when his family considers him both ready and required to do so.

I think "Jim the Boy" could be read by both children and adults with equal, but incredibly different results. It is a novel with universal appeal and impact.

Rating:
Summary: Fiction with freshness and credibility
Review: In 1930s small-town North Carolina, the story starts on the day Jim turns ten; he is being raised by his widowed mother and her three unmarried brothers, the Uncles, two of whom are twins. Over the course of the next year he makes a good friend and rival; watches unobserved as his mother refuses a suitor; and learns more about his father, another Jim, who died shortly before Jim the Boy's birth.
The style is one of unmannered simplicity; the freshness of Jim's perceptions become fresh for us too. As pointed out in an earlier review, one of the story's most striking moments is when he first sees the big city of Charlotte, "Two thoughts came to Jim at once, joined by a thread of amazement: he thought,
People live here, and he thought, They don't know who I am." Most importantly, none of the situations are from stock. Yes, he encounters danger, but it doesn't turn out as expected; yes, he finally "meets" his father's estranged father, but the encounter is not what you were expecting.
Though it's hackneyed to say so, Jim the Boy really is one of those novels which you might call "a book for young readers," if that includes anybody who remembers being young. It is sweet, but not cloying; and, more importantly, and unlike some fiction nowadays, you can believe every word.


Rating:
Summary: "Catcher in the Rye" without troublesome adjectives
Review: Highly recommended for anyone who was born in, came from, or has relatives in a small town, particularly a small town in western NC or SC. Extra points if you're from around Rutherford, Gaffney, Shelby, or points thereby.

Imagine "Catcher in the Rye" written from the point of view of a child who actually wants to catch baseballs, and who may be growing up on a farm that COULD be growing rye, and is as Southern rural as you can get without stomping on any politically correct toes.

Tony Earley's first "novel" isn't so much a novel as it is a humorous and melancholy episodal remembrance of pre-adolescence in a small Southern town. Since Earley's date of birth comes much later than the setting in the novel (and Earley was born a scant few years before my birth), and since the small town in question is (apparently) about 30 miles from my small town of birth, I have a soft spot for his prose. The reader will NOT find a great novel here; however, the reader will find a tender and nuanced piece of fiction that will bring back memories to anyone born in the South sometime before the 1970's. Indeed, those born in ANY small town with any knowledge of their childhood-town's history will wince and nod knowingly, assuming that Earley was really writing about their town. Jim's coming of age has no rude points, but suggests the pre-adolescent angst.

The book is concise--you can easily read it in one sitting, probably in a few hours. If the milieu and memories dredged up resound with you, the reader will probably want to go back and re-read some of the sections, just for the nostalgia. And, all that aside, the last section of the book, indeed, the last 3 or 4 pages of the book, are perhaps the best writing to come out of the South in decades. Earley has pieced together vignettes that border upon "young adult" fiction, along with a style that reminds one of Faulkner at his wittiest and Welty at her tenderest, and topped it off with a heart-wrenching finale that should make you cry.

I should reiterate "witty"--there are some belly laughs in this book. The "lights on" section is laugh-out-loud, and the acerbic humor of the uncles deserves more chapters, or at least a re-visitation by Earley. The understated humor, even in the dramatic passages, suggest that Earley is holding back on us--he could become this generation's version of Jean Shepherd, if he chose to.

The main drawback to the book is that it's too short. I gave it less than 5 stars mainly because of that, and partly because it sometimes reads as if some of the sections were meant as "young adult" prose but then changed into a "real adult" novel. I've been a fan of Earley even before his short stories were collected in "Here We Are in Paradise", and had hoped that his first novel would be a massive neo-Faulkner/Percy/Welty revival. I was disappointed with "Jim the Boy" for the first few tens of pages due to that expectation. Then, I got into the flow of the writing, and changed my expectations. The book reads in many places like a "young adult" work, and that's OK--I'd recommend it for teenagers. Then again, the nuances and beauty of the writing are obviously a bit more sophisticated than most "young adult" offerings, so it must be a real adult book.

Of course, "As I Lay Dying" reads like a "young adult" book, and look what's in there. And, as I suggested earlier, IF you're from a small town and latch onto the protagonists in the first 20 or so pages, you'll bawl like a baby on the last page.