I’d been looking forward to Robyn Carr’s Sunrise on Half Moon Bay, because I live in the area. Being familiar with the setting colors my review, even though Sunrise on Half Moon Bay is a work of fiction, so artistic-license is accepted and expected. But as a local, some aspects rang jarringly false. For instance, they met at the community pool (there is no community pool), and they go to a movie theater, though there is no local movie theatre. Carr references a snorkel shop, though no one snorkels here because the water is too cold. Beach volleyball is a rarity, etc. In general, it seems like this Half Moon Bay is set at least 50 miles south (around Santa Cruz), or even Santa Barbara.
The publisher might also have stayed truer to the purported setting — the cover illustration shows a woman on a fanciful dock facing the sunrise. Half Moon Bay is on the West Coast. The only east-facing sunrise, due to the odd curve of the coast, occurs in Santa Barbara. Sure, I’m being picky, but when I notice things like this, it takes me out of the story.
That’s okay, I didn’t expect verisimilitude. But nothing in the story depends on, nor is enhanced by, the location. It could have been set anywhere. The book could also have used a better editor. For instance, “Jake was in his midtwenties [sic], Adele still in high school, when he married Mary Ellen.” Yet earlier it was stated that Jake didn’t fall in love with Mary Ellen until Addie went to college.
Now, putting all of my reservations aside, I have to give Carr her due. The crux of this story revolves around the relationships between two sisters born 20 years apart, and the men in their lives. Carr succeeds in giving us complex and believable characters, natural dialogue, and sincere sentiments, with predictable though satisfying resolutions. She reminds me of a female Nicholas Sparks.
About a month ago I became aware of best-selling romance author Robyn Carr through an article in our local paper, The Half Moon Bay Review. She was being interviewed because her latest book, Sunrise on Half Moon Bay, is set here and was about to be released. So, I thought I’d check her out. Online I found that she is a wildly successful and prolific author, with several series of books set in small towns. As my latest novel, The Seal Cove Theoretical Society, is also set at the north end of Half Moon Bay, I’ll be fascinated to see how she frames the local scene. However, since Sunrise on Half Moon Bay was a few weeks from release when the article came out, I decided to try her out by reading the first of a series set in Virgin River, in the mountains north of Mendocino.
In Virgin River, Robyn Carr delivers exactly what you want from a good romance — a love story with believable dialogue, skillful exposition, lovely description, wholesome, and heartwarming characters old enough to have interesting backstories, while serving up some steamy sex on the side. The only fault I can find in it (and many would think this the best part of the book) is that the male protagonist is PERFECT. A young man might learn a lot from this book about what women want in a man. He’s good-looking, tall, strong, polite, protective, understanding, even-tempered, patient, mature, and loving without being overbearing. He’s a good example of what men might aspire to, but he’s just a little too perfect to be real. And his name is — you guessed it — Jack. What is it about the name Jack? At any neighborhood barbecue, you might find a Chris, or Mark, an Archie, a John, a Scott, or a Jerry, Bruce, Brad, or Arthur. But in the romance genre, once the name Jack is dropped, you just know he’s the love interest. Ah, well, that’s a small, nitpicking criticism. If you’re looking for a well-written, predictable, feel-good romance, you can’t go wrong with Virgin River.
In a normal year about 100 people die each day in automobile accidents. With everyone staying home, there will be far fewer accidents.
2) Fewer people commuting means less air pollution.
3) With everyone sheltering in place, family members are getting to know one another better. Board games and card games are making a comeback.
4) People are reading more books to entertain themselves.
5) Since kids are staying home from school, you no longer hear about school shootings.
6) Looked at objectively, human beings are a scourge upon the earth. The fewer of us there are, the less negative impact we’ll have on the planet.
7) The majority of deaths are men. As men are responsible for most of the world’s ills, the fewer men, the less violence, and the fewer wars. The world would be a better place with more women in it. I can say this, as I am a man and I own my failings.
8) The majority of victims of Covid-19 are old, and infirm. It’s a natural culling of the herd of the least productive among us. The positive effect is that losing that demographic takes pressure off the healthcare system and strengthens Social Security. It also frees families from the expense and responsibility of caring for their elderly. Cold? As a witch’s tit, but I can say this because I am a part of that demographic. If we die now with our wits about us, we will at least be spared the fright and indignity of slowly losing our minds as we totter toward the grave. And face it — we all have to get off this merry-go-round sooner or later.
My only concern is for younger victims, who should have most of their lives ahead of them.
I get the feeling we’re living in a Franz Kafka story. Here in San Mateo County we’ve been ordered to “shelter in place,” like sheep in the stockyards. We live in interesting times.
This pandemic, and in particular the world’s response to it, doesn’t seem quite real. We’re surrounded by hysterical pundits shouting impending doom. But the information has the whiff of an unreliable narrator. What are we not being told? This event will no doubt inspire dozens of apocalyptic novels and movies. The question is, after living through it, will anyone want to buy those books or watch those movies? In the meantime, I’ll whistle past the graveyard, write about the world as it was, and try not to contemplate an uncertain future.
I attended a talk that Ann Patchett gave before a book signing of The Dutch House recently. She was a marvelously entertaining raconteur. She was also a throw-back to another age. Her adventures in writing and publishing are far outside the norm for this time period, beginning with short story published in “The Paris Review” while she was in college over thirty years ago. An agent read it and signed her. When she finished her first novel, she drove hours to deliver the manuscript (this was in the age before the internet and email). Four days later the book was picked up by a major publisher, and she never looked back.
I’ve read everything she has published, and while I am not crazy about some of her work, Bel Canto and State of Wonder are among the best novels I’ve ever read (and I’ve read well over a thousand).
In 2011 she co-founded Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore in Nashville, Tennessee. In that capacity she was inundated with all the new releases from the Big Five publishing houses, and became an interviewer of other authors who stopped by her store to do book signings and promotions. As a result, she has developed many friendships with other outstanding authors — Michael Chabon, Kate DiCamillo, Barbara Kingsolver, Zadie Smith, Donna Tartt, Patrick Ryan, J.K. Rowling, Jane Hamilton, and others. So, when she gets stuck and asks for some guidance from fellow writers, she has the best in the business to point her in the right direction. That is truly rarified air, particularly in a field that is so solitary by nature. I’m not suggesting that the rest of us toiling in the trenches have her talent, nor that given her contacts we could turn out work as transcendent. I’m merely pointing out how unique her situation is.
When she set out to write The Dutch House, she couldn’t get past 30 pages. She tried changing the point-of-view and other tricks of the trade, but no matter what she did she didn’t seem to be able to get past that wall. Then she interviewed Barbara Kingsolver. At lunch afterwards Kingsolver could tell that something was bothering her. Patchett recounted the trouble she was having starting her new novel. Kingsolver listened to the bare bones synopsis, then said something to the effect that, I see where you’re going wrong. Your story is probably coming off the rails at about page 29 or 30, because that’s where you should turn left instead of right. Which solved that problem. When Patchett finished her first draft, she gave it to (if I remember correctly) Donna Tartt, who said (and I’m paraphrasing): The first third is magical, the second third is brilliant, but the last third falls off a cliff. Kate DiCamillo looked it over, saw what the problem was, and gave her a paragraph about how she would finish the book. And that was how The Dutch House came together. Sometimes the best editors are fellow writers.
The novel has garnered mostly glowing reviews, though it isn’t for the usual reader of plot-driven genre fiction. After reading along with the audible version. Tom Hanks lends his reassuring voice to the narration. Here is my take on it:
The Dutch House continues exploring the same themes as her previous novel, Commonwealth. In Commonwealth she writes “…Accepting the circumstances didn’t turn out to be the same as forgiveness.” Forgiveness, or the lack thereof, seems to haunt Patchett’s novels. What rings true in The Dutch House, is how time takes care of all transgressions. We watch Maeve and Danny grow from children angry and dismayed by their mistreatment, to middle-aged adults who find that with enough time old grudges lose their power. The middle-aged survivors are simply no longer the same people they were as teenagers and young adults. Only the house remains unchanged. For me, The Dutch House lacked the mystery of State of Wonder, and the complex motivations and interactions that made Bel Canto so satisfying. But it is still a fine character study.
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