The Day of the Dead by Maurizio de Giovanni

As the dawn was beginning to extract the outlines of things from the night and the rain, if someone had happened to pass by the foot of the monumental staircase leading up to Capodimonte, they'd have seen a dog and a child.

Two subordinate clauses slammed together like in the above sentence is awkward and not right. There's an evilness about this that disturbs me. Other than that there is not much happening here. Night is ending, as it always does, and there is a boy and a dog out and about. It has a little of the film fade in technique. Unfortunately, this is a novel, not a film. The next sentence and last in the first paragraph you can just skip, as it states that if someone had been there, but of course isn't, then it would have been hard to make the figures of dog and boy out. Whatever.

Paragraph 2 goes on to explain the boy and dog are just sitting there. Paragraph 3 begins by stating that ...if someone had...stopped to look they may have wondered [things] - or not; it would depend entirely on who these hypothetical characters would be. It goes on to say that someone [what about the reader?] might wonder what the boy and dog were doing before describing the boy and dog and then finally we arrive at page 2. By the end of this short opening chapter we may surmise the boy is dead. Amazing it took two pages to reveal something that could have been stated in one powerful sentence at the beginning. In other words, by using the if only... technique this opening reminds me of homework I've read in the past, published homework, and therefore is a fail.

Chapter 2 begins with a phone call with a header stating it is 1931, an interesting time period for some, so this might help to hook your brain.

First thing said:

"Commissa', you didn't think they'd let us finish our shift in peace, did you?"

Overall, I think this opening shows promise, but there isn't enough data here to raise any questions that need immediate answering. Yes, there is the question as to why the boy froze to death outside. Was he waiting for someone, or running away from something? However, it's not an usual enough situation to make me want to read on. If it was a real life situation, of course it would interest people, but this concept of a scene of a dead child found in cold weather has appeared before in the cruel fictional world that the human imagination has created.

I have a feeling this novel would make a great movie, which one may interpret as an insult or as a compliment to the book.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Rathbones by Janice Clark

Moses knows what will happen.

It's comforting to know that someone knows what this story is about, but rather than be told this, I'd prefer to know myself. The rest of the first paragraph is confusing and raises questions, not about the story, you know, character and conflict, but about what was this author was thinking when writing this. Take a look t what's next:

Not just how the trials will go today, or what the fathers will do when their golden sons fail and how the boys' mothers will bear it. The green of his eyes has long since been burned away by the sun on the sea, and there is no window in the little room. But he sees it all anyway, from his high blue bed. He sees the whole sweep of it.

There are a lot of ideas in this paragraph and none of them feel related. We have trials, green eyes burned by sun on the sea, a little room, a high blue bed and seeing it, whatever it is. Then as if to explain everything the next paragraph begins with sperm whales! This is starting to read like free verse thinly disguised as prose. Anyway, that's enough of the prologue. On the plus, the prologue is short so you can whiz right by it. Let's see if there is a story, you know, with conflict and character, that begins chapter 1.

Chapter 1:

If I had not heard the singing voice that night, none of the rest might have happened.

This is preamble, a common variety the "if things had been different, than things would have been different" beginning. It's an awkward way to begin a story these days, as it's more about the how to tell a story than the what the story is. Fortunately I don't come across this type of opening enough to call it a cliche, but it by no means is creative. We should start a new label: If only... and collect other novels under the label that begin like that.

This occurs in 1859. The next paragraph gets interesting when we learn that Mama might still be carving her bones, another might still be lingering in the attic, both of the narrator's crows would still be accompanying him/her everywhere. So there is some strangeness here, that can take the form of a hook if you care to untangle everything.

First thing said:

"A race of giants once lived on a faraway island."

This begins a story within the story.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird