Book Review: Nightrose by Dorothy Garlock

Eighteen years ago, when I was first becoming interested in the genre, I read a romance novel that I’ve never forgotten. It’s lived on the periphery of my memory ever since, and as I read more and more historical romances over the ensuing years, I inevitably compared them all to this one early tale that had introduced me to the world of affordable paperback love stories. Typically, I found all other subsequent romances to fall short of the spectacular tale spun by Dorothy Garlock in her 1990 novel Nightrose.

A few weeks ago, I got my hands on a used copy of Nightrose and trembled with anticipation at rereading it (as only booksluts like myself can tremble over a book). I was excited to see if the story was as great as I remembered, or if it had somehow changed over the last eighteen years. I knew I had changed, so the idea that the novel had as well, for better or worse, was a very real possibility. And I was right. Nightrose had indeed undergone a transformation. It was even BETTER than I remembered.

There could be a few reasons for this, all of which are plausible. Perhaps I’ve read so many second-rate romances that I now recognize a truly good one for the rarity it is. Perhaps, as someone who has tried his hand at writing one of these things, I’ve come to respect the monumental challenges presented by writing not only a believable, logical love story (for what is logical about falling in love?), but an historically accurate document of a certain time period. Or perhaps I’ve just grown up and could relate more realistically to this story of love, compromise and second chances. Whatever the reason, I now regard Nightrose as one of the finest romance novels ever written.

I’ve always felt a certain affinity with the novel’s author, Dorothy Garlock. Like me, she is an Iowan with a fond attachment to the land and the stories associated with it. In fact, I lived and worked for years in the same town Garlock calls home, and though a small community, I can’t recall ever having run into her. That may be for the best, as I probably would’ve groveled at the feet of such a celebrated writer; Garlock, now in her sixties, was one of the pioneers of the American romance novel: the grand dame of the frontier love story.

This title is well-earned, as is evidenced in Nightrose. Garlock constructs a story that is so much more than your dime-store bodice-ripper. Though much of it revolves around the relationship between strong-willed spitfire Katy and determined charmer Garrick, the book is much grander in scope than it first appears. It is really the story of an entire town, once deserted and left to rot, that comes brilliantly back to life, and the diverse, interesting people that populate it.

Nightrose takes place in Montana Territory, 1874. Twenty-one-year-old Katy, her older sister Mary, and Mary’s young daughter Theresa have been abandoned; they are the only residents of the desolate ghost town of Trinity. Mary’s loser-husband Roy has run off in hopes of striking gold, and though he left with the promise to return one day, wealthy and successful, to his wife and daughter, no one is holding their breath. The three young ladies are forced by necessity to leave behind their ramshackle cabin on the outskirts and take up residence in the most unlikely of places: the town funerary. They are completely alone and living off the land, with just a cow, a derringer, and whatever left-behind foodstuffs they can salvage from the forsaken buildings and homes.

Enter Garrick Rowe. Tall, muscled, Greek, and imposing. He sets up camp across from the funerary in the town jail. The ladies are uncomfortably aware of him, tracking his every move, though unsure of his motives in Trinity. He, too, is keeping tabs on them. What in the hell are two grown women and a little girl still doing in this forgotten place?

So begins the brilliant Nightrose. Their paths soon cross, sparks fly, all manner of people come and go throughout the town, shots are fired and blood is shed, and all the while Katy and Garrick are drawn closer together. The focus of the novel gradually expands to include the stories of not only Mary and Theresa, but those of the entire growing community descending upon Trinity, as well as the stories of Garrick’s friends and acquaintances in the “metropolis” of Virginia City.

Of course, there are villains as well. And not just one lowly scoundrel, but several shady schemers with different malicious agendas. Even using the word “villains” to describe these people is too generous. They fall more into the “Mega-Douchebags Who Deserve to be Castrated” category. I tend to dislike romances where the villains are this thoroughly evil, without even the slightest hint of humanity, but in Garlock’s deft hands, these characters serve a greater purpose than just being total pricks. Their collective presence is simply another obstacle that Katy and Garrick, and the town itself, must overcome on the journey to wholeness and contentment. Much like the hardships of living hand-to-mouth off the land, or being submissive to the whims of the weather, or existing under constant threat of attack from God-only-knows-who, these villains are one more hurdle to be overcome. And since all romances rely on a Happily Ever After (the main reason I enjoy them so), this overcoming is triumphant and exhilarating.

One of the aspects of Nightrose I found so impressive was the masterful way Garlock is able to walk the line between creating a story that is completely true to the traditional roles and accepted attitudes of the novel’s era, all the while remaining respectful of the sensitivities of modern readers. Many romance novelists don’t get this; they strive for historical accuracy and end up with offensive stereotypes (blithering, submissive women and violent, aggressive men). But Garlock’s characters are different: they are three-dimensional creations with rich inner worlds and capabilities of great thought and understanding. Katy is perhaps the most headstrong heroine I’ve encountered in a romance novel, often to the point of being stubborn and delusional, and Garrick is so bloody determined to make Katy “his” that he more than once crosses the line into the territory of controlling and obsessive — but these traits in our hero and heroine are not cemented. Like all of us, Katy and Garrick have the ability to change, and this fact is perhaps Garlock’s greatest success as a storyteller. Her characters slowly transform themselves, or let themselves be transformed by “the power of love”, however you choose to look at it. They think, they feel, they come to realizations about themselves and one another. Katy examines the nature of her initially strong (and extreme) aversion to Garrick, and she gets to the root of the problem to see just how flawed her reasoning is. Garrick, too, realizes that if he’s ever going to woo Katy with the passion he feels in his heart, he’s going to have to take a step back, make compromises, and concentrate on her thoughts, needs, and dreams. Whether these transformations are historically likely is not really relevant. What is relevant is that the author is courageous enough to imbue her characters with something truly timeless: GOOD SENSE.

All of this makes for a very believable and entertaining love story, an easy unfolding and revealing of emotions between two very interesting characters. And swarming around this main romance are several others, just as believable, notably Mary’s own burgeoning relationship with Garrick’s right-hand-man, the burly, furry Irishman Hank Weston.

Yet each of Garlock’s characters - not just the ones in the throes of la passion - are equally memorable. The brusque but tender she-hulk Mrs. Chandler, owner of the eatery. The handsome and sensitive mercantile proprietor Elias Glossberg. Nan Neal, a sassy illiterate showgirl who rocks Virginia City. The spunky working gals of The Beehive, Trinity’s very own whorehouse. I even liked Mary’s daughter, five-year-old Theresa, and I typically find kids in romance novels to be annoying and distracting. But Theresa is precocious and endearing; it’s easy to see how she enchants those around her.

Then there are the love scenes, which Garlock handles elegantly and sensually, without ever tipping over into the unseemly or unrefined. There is a lot of kissing in this book. A lot of kissing. Pages of it, in fact; from a peck on the cheek to a full-out French, and all of it is tasteful and classy (it’s a special writer who can make a tongue down the throat come across as soft and romantic). And I loved the fact that Garrick was Greek; imagining his fine-ass bod was a pleasure for me, and clearly for Ms. Garlock as well. I also loved that Katy wasn’t some heaving-bosomed sex kitten. She had boobs proportionate to her frame (read: SMALL), and while she approached her lovemaking with abandon and great joy, I always got the impression she kept her eye on the bigger picture: she loves this man, and he loves her. Thus, the sex became something more than sex (another fact that many romance novelists completely miss, choosing to focus instead on nearly laughable metaphors and cliches).

Garlock’s prose is luminous. She has the power to transport you wherever her words are in any particular moment. As Nightrose is so much more than your everyday historical romance, her talent as a storyteller is immense. While she could have focused solely on Katy and Garrick, she chose to make this a much larger story: the romancing of an entire town. In this sense, I almost want to suggest that Nightrose is less of a romance novel and more of a good old fashioned Louis L’Amour. With really hot love scenes.

Finally, the cover. Not only can this book be held up as an example of how great historical romance novels can be, but the cover art is also exemplary (at least it is on the edition I read, the original 1990 publication). For one thing, the characters actually LOOK like the characters in the book; in fact, they look just as I had imagined them. There’s also no submissive embrace or cheap excuse to show skin (though Garrick is shirtless, with his back to us, on the cover); there is instead a pose that appears as if they are running into one another’s arms. This is much more believable than some awful cover depicting, say, Katy’s nipple shadow and the outline of Garrick’s twelve-inch bratwurst as they cavort in the mountains with swans and horses creepily watching. Like the book it envelops, the cover is dignified yet fun.

If you’ve never read a romance novel, but have fallen under the impression that they are somehow sub-par or tawdry, Nightrose is for you; not only will it prove your theory wrong, but you’ll have a hell of a lot of fun in the process. If you are a romance reader who’s never really come across a decent one, Nightrose is also for you; this is a book that could be used as a shining example in “Romance Writing 101″. Even if romance novels hold no interest for you, but big epic stories about people and places of a bygone era are more up your alley, then Nightrose is an excellent choice here as well; it plays out in the mind with all the sweeping majesty of a classic Western movie. Grade: A

Book Title Nightrose

Author Dorothy Garlock

Publisher Warner Books

Year Published 1990

ISBN 0446356077

Snarkbytes On her website, Dorothy Garlock posts various recipes associated with the time periods or characters in her books. Click here to view Katy and Rowe’s chitlins.

August 23, 2008 | Filed Under Romance | 12 Comments 

Book Review: A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

Wherever Augusten Burroughs wants to take me, I am willing to go.

I am a die-hard fan of the 42-year-old writer, best known for his raucous, endearing memoir Running With Scissors. Scissors examined, with great sensitivity and acerbic wit, his adolescence spent in the bizarre home of his mother’s psychiatrist, where she pretty much abandoned him as a teenager. The book was terrifically successful, inspired a feature film of the same name, and put Burroughs on the literary map. And though I certainly enjoyed Scissors, it was his next book, 2003’s Dry, that really knocked me on my keister. Employing his usual humor and depth of feeling, Dry is a recounting of Burroughs’s chemical dependence and recovery and is one of the few books I’ve read that almost identically mirrors my personal experiences (we even went to the same rehab!). Dry could have easily been my own autobiography.

It is for these reasons that I trust Augusten Burroughs implicitly. If I had a literary kindred spirit, he’d probably be it. The places he needs to go, I’ve discovered, are also the places I need to go. Though the great majority of our life experiences couldn’t be more different, Burroughs’s brave examination of the few we do share is enough to give me the courage to look at my own life. It is a process. It is often slow. And it’s comforting to know that when we undertake such a process, we may be lucky enough to have a fearless writer who has tread the path before us. The great poet Theodore Roethke wrote, “This shaking keeps me steady. I should know./What falls away is always. And is near./I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow./I learn by going where I have to go.”

Yet even after all of this, I was not prepared for where Augusten Burroughs took me in his latest book, A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father. Forgoing his trademark quirky humor and uncanny knack for making the downright weird completely entertaining, Burroughs undertakes a harrowing, heartbreaking dissection of his inaccessible father and the impact such a figure had on a young, impressionable boy.

Now, anyone who knows me realizes that I have a bit of a flirtation with the dark side. I enjoy a lot of books, movies, and music that some might label “depressing”. I’m not afraid of human emotion, or, more specifically, bleak human emotion. But I have to admit that A Wolf at the Table is probably the saddest book I’ve ever read. My chest constricted, my stomach in knots, a lump lodged in my throat, my heart simply cracked more and more with each turn of the page.

But none of this - not one word - is written for shock value or sensationalist entertainment. While Burroughs is courageously retelling the story of his childhood, he is simultaneously (and equally courageously) piecing together what it all means. What it did both for and to him. How it shaped, defined, and destroyed various aspects of his being. You’ll find no psychobabble or Freudian theory here. What you will find is a very human story. And what may at first seem devastating and crushing ultimately ends up surprisingly inspiring: the truth, which we all know is oftentimes a painful path to forge, really can set us free. This book is an important one, even for those of us who had good dads (and I have a great one), if for no other reason than to make us appreciate what we were lucky enough to have. Some weren’t so fortunate.

A Wolf at the Table takes place in the pre-Running With Scissors years, when Augusten was a young boy living with his parents and peculiarly-absent older brother. His father, a bitter, violent alcoholic who often spilled over into the realm of the sociopathic, was a dark presence of immeasurable terror to the whole family. Yet he was consistently more so to Augusten, who he really never had time for. From the boy dressing up like the family dog (whom his father always had time for) in order to get his dad’s attention, to trying to decipher exactly what his dad is doing hovering over his bed in the dark, to attempting to find a father figure amongst a group of construction workers who come to work on their house, it’s amazing that the young Burroughs survived such a sad and terrorized upbringing at all. And it gets far worse before it gets better. After his father kills his beloved guinea pig (the scene where Augusten discovers this is one I will never, ever forget), the boy effectively turns on his dad, and so begins an explosive, enraged, emotional tug-of-war between the two. Tragically, even on his father’s deathbed, it still rages.

While A Wolf at the Table is a departure from the typical Burroughs wit, it is also a mature, terrifying, and totally haunting story. If you’re expecting Running With Scissors II, you’ll be sorely disappointed. But if you’re interested in going where you need to go, then there is no better guide than Augusten Burroughs. Grade: B+

Book Title A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father

Author Augusten Burroughs

Publisher St. Martin’s Press

Year Published 2008

ISBN 0312342020

Snarkbytes An excerpt from A Wolf at the Table: “As a little boy, I had a dream that my father had taken me to the woods where there was a dead body. He buried it and told me I must never tell. It was the only thing we’d ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell. But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me. And sometimes…I wasn’t altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream?”

August 23, 2008 | Filed Under Biography & Memoir | 7 Comments 

Book Review: 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper

A more appropriate title for this review would be “Holy Shit”, but I at least have couth enough not to write an offensive title that would emblazon a curse word at the top of my web page. I can, however, write a damned offensive review. And so I shall.

Let me begin by saying that 90 Minutes in Heaven is not a book I would normally read. At my former job, the employees started a monthly book club, and this particular book was the pick for the inaugural meeting. I borrowed a copy from a colleague, and thank Jebus I did. I would’ve been supremely pissed off had I laid down a single cent for this pious turd of a book.

Actually, even calling it a book is being generous. The word “book” implies certain standards. Books offer new ideas, new experiences, new adventures. Books make us think about the larger, more vital questions of this life. Books make us feel less lonely. Books are entertaining.

90 Minutes in Heaven has none of these. It’s more a long-winded pamphlet of Christian cliches and ideologies, masked in the guise of a preacher’s journey from a soul-saving, gospel-spreading Man of God to, well, a soul-saving, gospel-spreading Man of God.

Let me explain.

The author of this potato (let’s just call it a potato, since it’s clearly not a book) is a minister named Don Piper. In 1989, he was in an awful car accident, in which he was hit head-on and his vehicle was pretty much flattened. In this accident, Don Piper died. For ninety minutes, anyway.

Now this is where it gets tricky. A 205-page potato that boasts a title, cover and description declaring the author’s real, one-of-a-kind visit to the real, one-of-a-kind heaven, only contains fifteen pages actually about heaven. The rest of the story consists of the details of Piper’s recovery.

At this point in my reading, I was still more than willing to give it a chance. My partner was also in a terrible car accident many years ago, and his recovery process was long and arduous (and in some ways, still continues to this day). I thought Piper’s experience, while not giving me the secrets of heaven as promised, would hopefully give me some insight into what my partner went through.

But ah, ain’t wishful thinking grand? Because while it is true that the author goes into detail about the physical ramifications of the collision, he really says very little about the emotional or spiritual ones (outside of the typical platitudes and bumper-sticker-speak). And there is good reason for this: Don Piper is not a writer. He’s simply not, there’s no kind way to put it. Yet I gotta give Don a little credit, because he had sense enough to hire a co-author, Cecil Murphey, to write his story. I’m assuming he put it on paper with Murphey’s collaboration and guidance. Maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t this what a co-author is supposed to do?

Maybe Mr. Murphey called in sick on the day Piper decided to write the potato. Not only does it feel like it was written in a day, but there seems to have been no editing process involved whatsoever. The story lacks any real depth or discovery, which is truly tragic since this horrible experience could’ve served as a catalyst for some mighty, benevolent change in Don Piper’s world. And possibly even the worlds of other crash survivors.

Let’s visit those few pages that actually take place in heaven. First of all, the entire description of Piper’s heaven can be summed up in two words: “It’s indescribable.” He makes it a point to say this, repeatedly and ad nauseam, throughout the two chapters devoted to the celestial resting place in the sky. Everything, from the sights to the emotions to the music, is just not describable. This bothered me a lot. Piper clearly shouldn’t have written a book/root vegetable if he couldn’t put words to an experience. Because that’s what a book is.

The few bones he does toss us are positively trite. Pearly gates, streets paved with gold, choirs of angels. My first thought when I read these things was Damn, heaven sounds boring as hell.

As I mentioned, the remaining 190 pages chronicle Piper’s recovery after he was inexplicably brought back to life by another minister, who just happened to be driving by. This second minister squeezed into the mangled car and prayed all over Piper till he woke. These pages are as equally uninteresting and uninspiring as the few that take place in heaven. In writing his story, Piper has managed to do something that is indeed miraculous: he has left out the story itself. There are no dramatic arcs, there’s no coherent progression, and this hero we are rooting for undergoes no important spiritual or emotional changes.

The hero’s journey can be broken down like this:
1. Car accident. Bad.
2. Dies for ninety minutes. Goes to heaven. Indescribable.
3. Brought back to life; undergoes torturous recovery. Bad.
4. Continues with the same job, same life, same beliefs, same views held pre-accident. Good.

The other players in this drama, namely Piper’s wife, kids, and colleagues, play virtually no role in this retelling of events. In fact, I was a little offended by the author’s portrayal of his wife. Not only is she almost nonexistent, but what little he does say about her paints her as an irrelevant and incompetent “helpmate”. He even goes so far as to point out her inability to handle those oh-so-manly things like finances, writing checks and paying bills. This poor woman suffered just as much as he did with this accident, and she deserves better. Though Piper does claim that his pre-accident attitudes toward his wife evolved into something softer and more respectful, there’s little evidence in these pages to support that idea.

There was, though, one character and one instance that I found truly touching. After Piper has returned home to convalesce, his mother comes to take care of him when his wife steps away for a breather at Bible camp. He is embarrassed by his bed-ridden state and the fact that he has to use a bedpan. But his mother is unfazed: she falls into her role with delicate ease and nurses her son with no judgment and no discomfort. It’s really a beautiful scene, and I wish it hadn’t been relegated to a couple of paragraphs. This story — the man who has spent his life saving and caring for others is forced to be saved and cared for by the only person who really can: his mother — should have been the focus of the book. It would’ve made a far better story.

In the last chapter of the book, Piper does something I found profoundly distasteful and a furthering of the stereotypes that all Christians are out to save our souls and preach that their way is the only way. The author dismisses claims of other people’s near-death experiences. He doesn’t mention any names, but he points out some other folks who had NDEs and wrote books about their experiences. And then proceeds to blow them off with an arrogant attitude of, in so many words, “MY experience is the only REAL experience”.

I am not discounting, judging, or making light of the experience through which Don Piper lived. Trauma, brain injury, the boulder-strewn path of recovery…I live with these things every day. Nor am I questioning his claims of a heavenly visit; I find it relatively easy to take a leap of faith, think nonlinearly, and consider different possibilities when it comes to life and death. What I am questioning is the presentation of Piper’s experience as it is in 90 Minutes in Heaven, which pretty much craps on what was obviously a life-changing moment. Several times throughout this book, I thought, “Wow, this would make a great book!”.

Too bad he already tried.

And came up with a potato.

Now that you’ve heard me tear this book a new one, I’m tempted to tell you to go read it. It’s like that old SNL skit where one guy smells the sour milk, immediately winces, and says, “Oh that smells awful! Here, SMELL IT!” –and thrusts the carton at the other guy. It can be fun to see just how bad bad writing can be. I kinda want you to experience just how awful this book really is.

It’s…indescribable. Grade: F

Book Title 90 Minutes in Heaven

Author Don Piper

Publisher Revell

Year Published 2004

ISBN 0800759494

Snarkbytes Don Piper now runs his own ministerial empire. The ministries’ website has a page titled “How to Go to Heaven”.

August 23, 2008 | Filed Under Biography & Memoir, Spirituality & Religion | 9 Comments 

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      WHAT IS A SNARK?




      The Snark is a creature created by Lewis Carroll in his poem "The Hunting of the Snark". To give a proper description of Snarks, one must look no further than Carroll himself, who summed them up in one word: Unimaginable.

      But this much we do know: some have feathers, some have whiskers. Snarks sleep a lot, yet they are an ambitious lot -- with very little sense of humor. They love bathing-machines and tend to bring them wherever they go; they are also handy for striking a light. Snarks live on a far-off island, a place filled with chasms and crags, and are constantly on the lookout for Snark-hunters. Their mortal enemies are hope, care, thimbles and forks.

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