It can't be easy.......kind of a literary magic trick to pull off and few writers possess the gifts to do it right.....(not that plenty of them don't try anyway.)
The last time we cracked open something similar: Rene Denfeld's most excellent "The Child Finder" (covered in a previous post), a literal excursion into deep, forbidding woods in its dreamlike story of a woman who specializes in rescuing kidnapped children from predators.....a short novel that moved swiftly to its satisfying conclusion.
Sorry, we can't say the same about "The Doll Funeral". Kate Hamer's lead character, 13 year old Ruby is afflicted with a lethally abusive stepfather on the verge of killing her. And if that's not enough.......she sees and attracts ghosts. The wandering, restless spirits of the dead hover around her...
The problem here.......Hamer's narrative becomes as wandering and formless as Ruby's ghosts. This story should grip us by the throat, but we lost count of how many times we put the book down, tired and bored with its lack of direction or any real forward momentum.
As in a fairy tale, Ruby's heart wrenching situation leads her to flee into the woods, where she finds shelter, solace and love with teen siblings Tom, Elizabeth and Crispin. Abandoned by their bohemian, globe-trotting parents, they barely survive in the mansion left to them, shooting and skinning rabbits and depending on money and supplies from a mysterious man who shows up to harvest and market the marijuana crop left on the property by Mom and Dad.......
And on and on it drags, with alternating flashback chapters depicting the impossibly sad circumstances of Ruby's birth and the woeful trajectory of her real parents, a star crossed couple heading for disaster.........
Hamer unveils twists along the way as Ruby's determined search for her biological mother and father brings her back into the household of her toxic step-parents.......and in the excruciatingly slow final chapters, the book lays out its final revelations.
"The Doll Funeral" tries mightily to break you heart into a thousand pieces by the end.......but it's a tossup as to whether you'll tear up or just feel grateful that the damn thing has at last wrapped things up. For us, it was the latter. We're suckers for manipulative sentiment.......but not if it makes us yawn after every chapter.
If you have an inexhaustible supply of patience, this book might entrance you......but BQ wanted a page turner, and that didn't include draping the book across our chest after it lulled us into a nap.........1 & 1/2 stars (*1/2).....may it rest in peace.
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