Halfway through the book I quit it. The writing, which started out poetic and complex and evocative, seemed to become the end-all rather than the means to the end. And I never connected closely with the characters. The urge to purge came on rather quickly, like what happens when on one day your haircut is perfect and the very next day you want to grab the scissors and whack it off yourself. On to something else.... ( )

This was a unique read. The author has a way with words and can build a huge sentence that flows naturally and creates beautiful and sometimes scary pictures in the reader's mind. I'm looking for passage to print for my collection of book passage. There are so many parts that I loved. The story was intriguing, the setting unusual, the characters haunting. All of the facets made for a wonderful read. ( )

When was the last time you read a book that was beautifully written AND was a compelling story? Bruce Machart has done just this in The Wake of Forgiveness, his first novel. His writing is both lyrical and poetic but maintains the dramatic tension and suspense to move the story forward.
Set against the hard-baked Texas countryside from 1895 to 1924 this story follows the fate of a family after the mother of three boys dies while giving birth to her fourth son, Karel. Her husband never forgives Karel for her death and makes all of his sons the object of his misery, literally harnessing them together to plow his fields. Karel is raised with no love or physical affection from his father, who has never touched him in any way but in anger, and he continually tries to fill that void with imaginings of the mother he never knew.
Machart’s descriptions of the landscape and of the physically and emotionally damaged characters, who strive to survive in it, are evocative and moving. You can smell the sweat of a hard day’s work, the taste of blood from a split mouth, feel the deep yearning of a young boy for a mother he never knew, and even feel the despair and misery of a man who has lost the only thing in life that mattered to him.
This isn’t just a family melodrama though and Machart explores large looming themes of loss, loyalty, forgiveness and redemption.
This is literary fiction at its best not canned writers’ workshop fodder.
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Based in the early 1900’s, “The Wake of Forgiveness” gives us a thorough look into the time and lives of the residents of Lacava County, Texas. The author, through shifting time periods, takes us through the life of Karel Skala, a boy who loses his mother from complications of his own birth and grows up the youngest of four boys with a bitter and resentful father. Suffering a childhood of abuse and guilt, Karel grows up and after the birth of his own son, begins to look back at all his suffering and pain and tries to find peace – within his own self and his remaining family members.
In a time so different from our own, the author does a remarkable job of describing characters, topography, even scents of a time unknown to us. Some descriptions are so real they are disturbing, yet portray a reality that would be otherwise unimaginable. His use of shifting time periods keep the reader interested and seeking answers.
While I found the story itself interesting – although a little too graphic for my taste, I found myself getting lost in too much description with single sentences that ran sometimes over a half a page. I read like I speak, and when my brain cannot “come up for air” so-to-speak because of those page long sentences, reading it becomes more of a distraction and less enjoyable. I also disliked the characters to the extent that that also was a hindrance to me (which is a compliment to the author for creating such compelling characters). In the end, I found this book difficult to stick with and more of a chore than a pleasure.
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Anne Holman at The King's English grabbed this one when I asked her for something that was like what we publish at Torrey House Press. While I don't consider Texas the West, and the book does not carry a conservation line, it never hurts to ask a book seller what to read.

Great title. Stubborn men in a gritty, patriarchal, macho time and impossible place gradually gaining a touch of humanity. Great sense of place and people. ( )