This is Martin Pousson's first novel, published back in March 2002. I didn't read it with as much of a critical eye as I did with a nosey curiosity. I only know Martin as he's on-stage at the bar where he works. I read his novel with as much curiosity about Martin as with what he had to say. First novels are notorioiusly autobiographical, and this one is as well. Maybe not the details of the story line, but these characters are real. Their conversations were written from a young boy's memory of the details of growing up in southwest Louisiana's Cajun culture. I learned a lot about Martin's people, and I knew a lot already having grown up next to them.
The book is written from the point of view of its two primary characters, Louis and Nita. They meet, marry, and doom each other to a life of misery without ever having a spark of affection for each other. They have lived their lives as emotional cripples, unable to communicate even basic emotions. They begin their life together as strangers and end as strangers. Martin paints a devastatingly detailed portrait of Nita through her own thoughts. We learn early that she hates her husband, hates her step-father, is strangely detached of emotion for her mother, blaming the lack of closeness on her step-father. We learn about Nita and have no sympathy for her struggles. We do not like Nita. She is a manipulator. She is the more dominant character in the book. We mostly know the two children, Marc and Jo, through Nita's point of view. This is Nita and Louis's story. The kids were just accessories.
Without saying that Nita and Louis's son, Marc, is Gay, he is portrayed as a talented, sensitive, overachiever, with a lisp which she has surgically removed. [Is that possible?] In one scene, Nita walks in on Marc dancing naked to a Barbra Streisand song. Nita is always projecting her hopes and expectations onto Marc. I was not comfortable with Martin's implications regarding the homosexual son and dominant mother scenario, but it's a very comfortable shoe worn by Southern writers. My discomfort comes from my experience that teaches me that it so very much more complex than that, which is negated by my own classic relationship with my mother who when told I was Gay exclaimed, "How could you do this to me?"
The darkest relationship is between Nita and her daughter Jo. It is a tragic tale of a struggle for power between two people who were willing to fight each other to the death with both losing, one her life, the other her mind. We never really know what Jo is thinking as she acts out her rebellion. Mostly we watch her self-destruct in front of her mother from Nita's point of view.
I wasn't particularly happy with the ending, but I was so exhausted from these poor souls struggling in their depressing lives that I was just glad that he ended it. Martin has another book coming out soon. I have only one bit of advice: for chrissake Martin, give us at least one character that we can like and who lives to the end of the damn book. Not that I didn't like Mark, naked and twirling to Barbra Streisand and all, but this wasn't his book, was it?
You know, Martin, you left Nita out of her mind, believing that Louis killed Jo to spite her, but I believe that Nita had enough spark to pull out of that dark spot and re-invent herself. With a person like her, none of the bad that has wrecked her plans is her fault. She'll pick herself us and completely rationalize herself back into the game. What choice does she have but to keep on struggling? The Nita's of the world don't quit.
This may not be obvious, but I do not generally review books. Neither do I meet many authors in my daily comings and goings. Since I was impressed and mentioned it earlier, I just thought you might like to know what I thought of the book.
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