The Clay Girl

Oh [a:Heather Tucker|8038581|Heather Tucker|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], I hate you.

I picked up this book because I belong to the same large writing group (almost 300 members), but if I've ever formally met Tucker, I've forgotten about it. I also picked it up because the premise was intriguing.

When I started reading the novel, I was sure it was going to be a 1-star review. I wasn't overly impressed at the start. I'll address one of the two issues here that I have with the novel.

I'm going to say that I'm actually jealous of Tucker's writing ability. Her word choice, her imagery, her observations, all of them are both gorgeous and stunningly perfect. Her characters are show more memorable. But the issue I had is, there were times--quite a lot of them, actually--where I found myself a little lost because scenes seemed to grasshopper jump from one to the next with little or no transition. While I could always figure out where I was now, I often found this jarring and it served to pull me out of this story.

And that's a shame, because the story itself is wonderful. Tucker creates both the most incredibly likable and incredibly detestable characters I've come across in years.

Which brings me to the only other issue. The end. I felt that, with all that had gone before, the author owed us more. I loved this novel up until the last paragraph, and then I felt a little cheated, to be honest.

Overall, however, an incredible read. show less

This is probably the most beautifully written book I've read in a while, very lyrical but never overly so.
It kept my interest despite the hard topics it touches, mainly because the main character is exceptional. Ari is the youngest of six sisters in a family where the father was abusive and the mother an addict and completely emotionally unavailable. However, there is a lot of love in this book, which is about finding family and your own path despite the circumstances thrown at you. A very unique take on some overdone topics with many great characters.
I loved it also cause it feels very Canadian, taking place in Toronto, Cape Breton and Montreal in the 1960s.
It wasn't perfect, some parts kinda dragged on, but overall it is a really show more decent book. Looking forward to reading the sequel. show less

THE CLAY GIRL seems overrated because this coming-of-age novel reads like a fairy tale (think Cinderella). The protagonist/narrator (Hariet (sic)/Ari) comes from an unbelievably dysfunctional home. We have drug addiction, brutal adults, corruption, greed, violence, molestation and suicide. She is even forced to prepare meals and clean up for the family much like Cinderella. Through it all, the plucky heroine manages to find solace in kindly teachers, sympathetic friends (both adult and adolescent), and especially an aunt who has been ostracized because of a longstanding and happy same sex relationship. Most seem too good to be true. Throughout, one knows that Ari will eventually find her prince. The only question being how much hell she show more will be forced to endure before that finally happens.

The novel follows Hariet Appleton from age eight into young adulthood. She is a very bright and creative child who is farmed out to her loving Aunt Mary in Cape Breton following her father’s suicide and her mother’s inability to care for her and her five sisters due to a drug habit. Primarily to get her hands on her kindly second husband’s inheritance, Ari’s mother forces her to return to Totonto where she lives in a home with her brutal boyfriend, Dick Irwin. Although Tucker obviously intends Ari to be a heroic figure, she often comes across as someone who is just too precious to be easily liked or even believed. One of her most annoying affectations is Jasper, an imaginary seahorse companion that persists in unnecessarily interrupting the narrative flow with observations and advice that is meant to be humorous, but just seems to grate.

Most of the characters are predictable and flat. They are either unbelievably benign or outrageously evil. Tucker’s good characters are culturally liberal, intelligent and kind, whereas the bad characters are self-centered, greedy, brutal and corrupt. She depicts Ari’s mother and Dick Irwin as cartoonish in their unrelenting badness.

Tucker tends to write dialogue without any clear identifiers. In an interview, she remarks that she prefers using “sensual detail” over “he said.” This is all well and good but often can be too oblique to understand who is speaking. Moreover, her writing style tends to lapse into sentimentality, lacking in distance and objectivity.

The novel is set in the 1960s in Toronto and Cape Breton. Tucker does better with evoking the bucolic maritime nature of the latter than she does with the former. Like most North American cities in the 60s, a drug and hippie culture was flourishing in Toronto. Yet Tucker fails to bring it alive for the reader. This is unfortunate since the bulk of the novel is set during that time. show less

2.5 stars

Ari (Hariet) is only 8-years old when her abusive father shoots himself. Ari heads to Nova Scotia to live with her aunts. Her four older sisters… I’m not quite sure where they went. Even the summary so far is partly from the summaries online. Ari goes back and forth between her abusive mother in Ontario and her aunts. Luckily for Ari, her new stepfather (Len) is kind and caring. Even so, Ari has her imaginary friend, Jasper the seahorse, to help her along.

Ok, so it was really hard to follow, especially at the start. I don’t like having to use an online summary to get me up to speed with what is happening as I read a book, but I didn’t like the way it was written, as there was too much reading between the lines to show more figure out what was going on much of the time (though not all the time).

When I could figure out what was going on, it was good. But too hard to figure that out in too many places. Especially at the start, it didn’t help that all of Ari’s older sisters had names that started with J, in addition to Jasper. It also took a while to figure out who/what the heck Jasper was (and maybe I never would have without the online summary?). There were some things I liked – Ari’s relationship with Mikey, especially. Mikey was a stepbrother later on (not Len’s son, but the son of a different (abusive) stepfather later). I also liked Ari’s relationship with Len. I did think the story was good, but I did not like the way it was written, as it was just too hard to follow through much of the book. show less

If they had more stars I would add five more to give it a worlds first 10. The most unique, beautiful, poetry for the written word, astounding work I have read in a very long time. Highest recommendation.