The Kings and Queens of Roam

A fantastical story about a remote community established through deception and about a sisters' relationship, also tainted by deception.
Elijah McCallister kidnaps Ming Kai because Ming knows how to make silk and has silk worm pods. Together they establish the remote town of Roam, though the "togetherness" is on Elijah's terms and with Ming's resentment. The town flourishes, in the context of its remoteness, but Ming Kai warns Elijah that the town's beginnings will result in a curse on generations to come.
In Roam, years later, live Helen and Rachel, Elijah's great-grandchildren. Helen, the elder, is homely and sullen. Rachel is blind and beautiful, and a victim to Helen's lies and cruelty. Helen tells Rachel that she's lucky she's blind show more because that way she can't see how homely she (Rachel) is; whenever someone tells Rachel how pretty she is, she believes they're mocking her or being clumsily polite.
The sisters' parents make the treacherous drive once a week to procure magical water that they hope will allow Rachel to see. But Helen empties the vials and fills them with tap water.
What happens to all these characters, and others, comprises the rest of this absorbing and compassionate story. And because this is from Daniel Wallace, there are also fantastical touches - giant lumberjacks, ghosts, the magical waters.
I was surprised at one of the endings - that Rachel would turn on the friend who eventually led her to a cure for her blindness - but the book is wonderful, and Mr. Wallace certainly knows how to tell a story.
Some favorite passages:
(Elijah) knew what was in a man's heart just by looking. This is how he became who he was: by seeing what was in a man's heart, and taking it from him.
Helen ... discovered in her sister's absence what love and the loss of it is. ... It's a real thing inside of you made of paper thin glass, and when it breaks, the shards move through your blood and cut you to pieces.
A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself.
He stumbled, but it was grief that made him fall to his knees. show less

This review first appeared on my blog: http://www.knittingandsundries.com/2013/07/772013-kings-and-queens-of-roam-by.ht...

My Take:

Helen and Rachel are two orphaned sisters in a dying town founded by their grandfather. There are ghosts everywhere, but only two people can see them: Helen and Digby, the town bartender, short of stature but long on character.

Helen is notoriously ugly, and Rachel is absolutely stunning, but she is blind. Helen's jealousy has led her to make Rachel believe that SHE is the ugly one, and she spins imaginative tales meant to bind her sister to her - the town is surrounded by ravenous birds, a dangerous ravine, and various other dangers. She also always reminds Rachel that their parents died in a car accident show more because they were on a medical mission hoping to cure her blindness.

This is also the tale of Elijah McAllister, their grandfather, who stole a man named Ming Kai away from his homeland of China through trickery and deceit - all for the secret of making silk. Roam was founded on the silk industry, but Ming Kai, the reason for it all, never shared in the success.

Mr. Wallace does a fantastic job of spinning this tale of modern folklore - there are lumberjacks, huge, somehow mysterious, black dogs, dwarfs, giants, unrequited love, deceit, tragedy, ghosts who act the opposite of their living selves, and the ties that bind family and friends.

There are many characters, all stars in their own rights, and as Rachel makes a life-changing decision, the fate of Roam and its inhabitants may hang in the balance.

This is magical realism at its finest, and I found myself reading through it at a high-flying pace. I would definitely recommend it for ANY reader.

QUOTES:

Ming Kai's first complete sentence was, "Please never untie me, for if you do I will kill you, and I don't want to become a man who takes another man's life."
"That's a long sentence," Elijah said. "Too long to follow." And he whacked him across the back of his head with a piece of wood.

Silk made Elijah a very rich man, and as rich men have always done, he built a house far too big for a man to live in. It was elegant, magnificent, absurd. It would have been absurd anywhere, but in Roam, an invented place in the middle of nowhere, it was gloriously, mythically, absurd. In addition to being huge - you had to look at it twice just to see it once - it was also recklessly beautiful, the largely uninhabitable manifestation of the mind of a madman lucky enough to find a thing through which he could channel his ambition.

He tried to smile. She couldn't see him try to smile, of course, and he realized that people smiled so that other people could see the smile, instead of just smiling for themselves. It had less to do with being happy than with showing someone else you were happy. He didn't have to do that with her. Things changed when you sat around a fire with a blind girl.

BLOGGERS: Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Writing: 5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 5 out of 5 stars
Characters: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 5 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING: 4.8 out of 5 stars

Sensitive Reader: Some mild profanity

Book Club Recommendation: Yes; I think that this is the type of story that appeals to a lot of readers and would be a fun read to share and talk about. If you're looking for deep, deep discussions on heavy subjects, probably not. show less

I must admit that this was not a book within my normal genres but I'm quite happy I chose to read it. I truly love that when I go outside of my norms and find a book that keeps me so engaged. I did not read Mr. Wallace's first novel, Big Fish so I knew nothing of his style when I started this one.

The book is two stories; that of two sisters, Helen and Rachel and that of the town of Roam itself. Helen and Rachel are left alone after their parents die and Rachel is dependent on Helen as she is blind. Rachel is beautiful and as the book tells us, Helen is not. Helen is very jealous of Rachel and starts to tell her a series of lies about herself and her surroundings. The reader also learns about how the town was founded and about its show more founders.

The writing is just magical and so are the stories; there is a fair bit of fantasy involved in the tales and I'm not usually a fan of such but the book is just so well written you can't help but get drawn into the story and well, believe.

Rachel finds that she doesn't need her sister as much as she thought she did and Helen realizes she needs her sister more than she thought. It doesn't end with unicorns and rainbows and the book does make you think - which I just love in a novel. The two tales come together giving, if not answers, then an end. I'll keep this one to read again and with all that I read, you know those books are few and far between. show less

Magical realism is no surprise from Daniel Wallace. This particular version is about contrasts, family, choices, and a lot about decay, of various kinds. Its themes might really get to you, but they didn't really get to me.

I was immediately engaged by the playful language and whimsical characters and setting. Wallace is a joy to read.

The novel is well-written and encourages the reader to consider those they have loved, yet wronged in the past. Nobody is innocent in this book. In the end, we all have done things we aren't proud of.

I finished this one, but wondered why I did - it was so weird, and also had nothing but unlikable characters: sisters Helen and Rachel McAllister, descendants of the even more unlikable founder of the fictional remote silk manufacturing town of Roam, Elijah McAllister. There's also a number of benign ghosts in this fantasy.

In lyrical prose Wallace gives us the story of a magical yet dying town of Roam. I first saw the movie "Big Fish", never actually read the book but the story behind the movie was quirky and delightful. In this book, Wallace once again tackles a story with many moral ambiguities and characters that are hard to like and yet sympathetic in their humanness. How this town came to be and why it is now dying is what kept me reading. The two sisters could have been young sisters anywhere, but not all the characters of Roam are as transparent. When I first started reading this I was''t quite sure what to make of it, but slowly I became enthralled with this unusual story. In the end, this could be any town anywhere, magical or not, when show more characters act with the wrong intentions toward others. Really enjoyed this quirky novel. show less