The Cry of Dry Bones, by N.T. McQueen, JUL2023 LTER
Talk Reviews of Early Reviewers Books
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1LyndaInOregon
Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided for review by the author, via Library Thing.
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There’s definitely a story here, but it’s in desperate need of a good copy editor. McQueen has chosen to write about a young African boy coming into physical and spiritual maturity through a series of allegorical deaths and rebirths (reflected in the new names he is given each time) as he moves from a worldview governed by violence and bloodshed into one of forgiveness. But the author stumbles over technical shortcomings which occasionally render the text incomprehensible and often kick the reader out of the story to puzzle over just what is meant.
First, McQueen has adopted the currently-trendy affectation of abandoning quotation marks – a move which will instantly annoy a goodly portion of his readers (this reviewer among them). Second, he is afflicted by a nearly terminal fondness for incomplete sentences, some of which make no sense at all. Coming upon one of these fragments – or worse, upon several in a row -- sends the reader’s brain off on a futile search for a verb to bring back and drop into the word stew in hopes that some kind of coherent statement will emerge. Third, the author has an annoying habit of using past participle verb forms when a simple past tense would have been the correct choice, once again kicking the reader’s brain right out of the story and back to Mrs. McGillicuddy’s fifth grade grammar class. And fourth, the text is peppered with almost-but-not-quite-the-right-word choices. Callous and callus(ed) are not the same word and are not interchangeable, nor are retched and wretched, taut and taught, or sole and soul.
These are all rookie errors that would have been caught by even the most casual copy editing, and their inclusion in the book do it great harm.
If the reader can manage to stay on point through these distractions, there is a compelling story underneath it all, with an engaging character who is asking himself the Big Questions about moral imperatives and the nature of the gods, or whether such things even exist.
Tesfahun lives in a pre-technological tribal culture located near the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. They hunt, they keep a few cattle, and they grow a few subsistence crops. A drought is bringing hardship as game moves out of the area, but conflicts with neighboring tribes, some of whom have modern firearms, make it dangerous to hunt far afield. A sporadic, ongoing war expressed mostly in small skirmishes leads to the death of one of Tesfahun’s friends, and the friend’s brother insists on going forth for vengeance, telling Tesfahun “It is better to die than to live without killing.”
There’s also a major plotline dealing with the tribal custom of killing “mingi” children – a term which really needs to be better defined early on. It apparently covers both physical deformity and circumstances of birth, such as being a twin or being born outside a sanctioned relationship. The death of such children is thought to prevent bad luck from striking the village. At some point, already at odds with his family over the discovery that he himself was a twin whose brother was sacrificed, Tesfahun comes upon a group of shamans from the tribe preparing to throw a mingi infant into the river. His attempts to save the child lead to his final break with his home village and his first near-death experience – a theme McQueen returns to multiple times as the young man wanders a hostile land, and is repeatedly told that life is cruel, that he must “be blood or take blood”, and he must not expect mercy from man or the gods.
Tesfahun’s attempts to accept this harsh philosophy wars with his own nature and his belief that there must be a better way to survive. His continued search and its ultimate resolution form the backbone of the novel.
It’s really hard to recommend this one. The basic story is well-constructed, but the problems in presentation make it a struggle to get through.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
There’s definitely a story here, but it’s in desperate need of a good copy editor. McQueen has chosen to write about a young African boy coming into physical and spiritual maturity through a series of allegorical deaths and rebirths (reflected in the new names he is given each time) as he moves from a worldview governed by violence and bloodshed into one of forgiveness. But the author stumbles over technical shortcomings which occasionally render the text incomprehensible and often kick the reader out of the story to puzzle over just what is meant.
First, McQueen has adopted the currently-trendy affectation of abandoning quotation marks – a move which will instantly annoy a goodly portion of his readers (this reviewer among them). Second, he is afflicted by a nearly terminal fondness for incomplete sentences, some of which make no sense at all. Coming upon one of these fragments – or worse, upon several in a row -- sends the reader’s brain off on a futile search for a verb to bring back and drop into the word stew in hopes that some kind of coherent statement will emerge. Third, the author has an annoying habit of using past participle verb forms when a simple past tense would have been the correct choice, once again kicking the reader’s brain right out of the story and back to Mrs. McGillicuddy’s fifth grade grammar class. And fourth, the text is peppered with almost-but-not-quite-the-right-word choices. Callous and callus(ed) are not the same word and are not interchangeable, nor are retched and wretched, taut and taught, or sole and soul.
These are all rookie errors that would have been caught by even the most casual copy editing, and their inclusion in the book do it great harm.
If the reader can manage to stay on point through these distractions, there is a compelling story underneath it all, with an engaging character who is asking himself the Big Questions about moral imperatives and the nature of the gods, or whether such things even exist.
Tesfahun lives in a pre-technological tribal culture located near the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. They hunt, they keep a few cattle, and they grow a few subsistence crops. A drought is bringing hardship as game moves out of the area, but conflicts with neighboring tribes, some of whom have modern firearms, make it dangerous to hunt far afield. A sporadic, ongoing war expressed mostly in small skirmishes leads to the death of one of Tesfahun’s friends, and the friend’s brother insists on going forth for vengeance, telling Tesfahun “It is better to die than to live without killing.”
There’s also a major plotline dealing with the tribal custom of killing “mingi” children – a term which really needs to be better defined early on. It apparently covers both physical deformity and circumstances of birth, such as being a twin or being born outside a sanctioned relationship. The death of such children is thought to prevent bad luck from striking the village. At some point, already at odds with his family over the discovery that he himself was a twin whose brother was sacrificed, Tesfahun comes upon a group of shamans from the tribe preparing to throw a mingi infant into the river. His attempts to save the child lead to his final break with his home village and his first near-death experience – a theme McQueen returns to multiple times as the young man wanders a hostile land, and is repeatedly told that life is cruel, that he must “be blood or take blood”, and he must not expect mercy from man or the gods.
Tesfahun’s attempts to accept this harsh philosophy wars with his own nature and his belief that there must be a better way to survive. His continued search and its ultimate resolution form the backbone of the novel.
It’s really hard to recommend this one. The basic story is well-constructed, but the problems in presentation make it a struggle to get through.
2bookcrazed
Reading your review, I realize I missed a lot in the plot because I spent so much energy struggling through the disastrous errors and chaotic literary devices. I read it in short spurts, which was all I could tolerate, and that contributed to my poor grasp of some plot elements. Your excellent review does not appear on the book's page. I hope you will copy and paste it there to be read with the other reviews.
3LyndaInOregon
>2 bookcrazed: My review is the last of 8 on the book's page -- unless I'm misunderstanding that term.
Link
I still have trouble navigating the LT site, so if there's a third place (in addition to this group and what I thought was the book's page) please let me know.
Thanks for the comment and the suggestion.
Link
I still have trouble navigating the LT site, so if there's a third place (in addition to this group and what I thought was the book's page) please let me know.
Thanks for the comment and the suggestion.
4lorax
LyndaInOregon, yes, your review appears on the work page (as it should). As you say, it's currently eighth out of eight when sorting by date, since you were the first to review it - possibly bookcrazed just didn't click to "see more" and only saw the first five.
5Juan-banjo
Review: Early Reviewers Book-Five Wishes by Karin M. Gertsch 4* 12/08 /2023
This was a wonderful book. It's the type of book that can be taken to the beach for a relaxing time. It's about a family in a small town in Massachusetts. Bertie, the husband owns a shoe repair shop and the wife Tilli is a respectable down-to-earth person with two grown daughters.
They are a happy couple and Bertie is content living his life in a small town but Tilli sometimes thinks she is missing out on what she would like to do. However, she never lets on to Bertie and her daughters what her innermost wishes are. She secretly has five wishes she wants and one of them haunts her most every day of her life.
Then the unthinkable happens. Bertie dies and Tilli's grief has made her depressed for a long time. So, her daughters Mel and Lyn decide to try and get their mother out of the house and take a short trip to try to lift her spirits. That's all it took for Tilli to turn her life around and think about her wish list. The story continues with adventure, traveling, and lots of love also, Bertie has a secret he had kept from Tilli through their marriage. Read on to find out what his secret was,
This was a wonderful book. It's the type of book that can be taken to the beach for a relaxing time. It's about a family in a small town in Massachusetts. Bertie, the husband owns a shoe repair shop and the wife Tilli is a respectable down-to-earth person with two grown daughters.
They are a happy couple and Bertie is content living his life in a small town but Tilli sometimes thinks she is missing out on what she would like to do. However, she never lets on to Bertie and her daughters what her innermost wishes are. She secretly has five wishes she wants and one of them haunts her most every day of her life.
Then the unthinkable happens. Bertie dies and Tilli's grief has made her depressed for a long time. So, her daughters Mel and Lyn decide to try and get their mother out of the house and take a short trip to try to lift her spirits. That's all it took for Tilli to turn her life around and think about her wish list. The story continues with adventure, traveling, and lots of love also, Bertie has a secret he had kept from Tilli through their marriage. Read on to find out what his secret was,
