The author sent her novel to me to read and review:
This novel was mainly a dissertation on today’s atrocious nursing home conditions. I was made to believe that this novel would be comparable to Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (see my review of 6/15/2015). The author presented her novel to me as a suspenseful, psychological thriller with sinister overtones. That statement is flawed at best. It starts out as an ordinary story that suddenly mutates into a ridiculously zany and bizarre ending. But none of it was suspenseful or thrilling for me. The author’s promise of ghosts haunting the nursing facility initially seemed to be an afterthought. Zelda (the main character’s mother who calls ghosts...spooks) saw a spook on page two and didn’t see another one until page 108. And when they finally appeared, they were more preposterous than scary. So what did the author do correctly? She kept the main characters down to a reasonable number. Her prose, while mostly rudimentary, seemed mistake free. It boils down to the fact that the story wasn’t electrifying nor groundbreaking. I felt no empathy for any of the characters, including the patients and the trapped ghosts. We already know that nursing homes are notoriously uncaring for a variety of reasons, which the author (to her credit) identified in her novel, but I don’t think (that) it is possible to have a catastrophic event happen every time you drop by to visit your relative (which was the case in this novel). I think the author has a feasible future in literature, but please come up with a better tale sans the fantasy part. This story is not comparable to Henry James’ classic short story.
The story starts with a rain storm off the coast of Maine. David Reed is painting in his studio when he gets a call from one of the few good nurses from the Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center where his mother, Zelda, is a patient recovering from a broken hip. The nurse asks David if it’s okay for them to give his mother a drug to calm her down. David says “no” to that idea and gets in his car and drives down to the nursing home. As it turns out, his mom was being verbally abused by a mean nurse named Taylor Hanson. David arrives and calms his mom down. Zelda says, “David, please get me out of here.” David says, “Once you finish your therapy, I’ll take you home.” David explains to Zelda that the doctor will not release her until her therapy is finished. She says, “But I’m afraid.” David says, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Zelda says, “Yes there is. There’s spooks in here.” This is the first mention of ghosts, or spooks, as Zelda calls them. As the weeks go by, David realizes what a abusive place this nursing home is. His mom says she is refused showers, made to pee in her pants and abused every day. Kevin and Edgar Fitzgerald are friends of the Reeds. Their father (they call him Da) is also an abused patient at the Haven’s center. The abuse gets worse. David threatens to sue the doctor for reckless endangerment to no avail. David takes his grievances to the State Health Department. He gets nowhere with them, “I’m sorry. But the results of our investigation show that the staff at Haven has done nothing wrong.” Suddenly, the Fitzgerald brothers say that the Haven staff killed their Da...will the poop hit the fan? (so to speak).
This is where the story moved into the fantasy genre. It’s kind of like when the movie, The Wizard of Oz went from black and white to color. Like when King Kong left the jungle and arrived in NYC, or when Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland fell through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world. Why C. L. Salaski switched from a drama to a fantasy is something only she knows. But all is not lost. If the novel was awful, I wouldn’t have finished the book. I finished the book. Strong evidence of what I said in my opening sentence in the first paragraph is presented at the end of the novel. On the last page, the author list eight things you can do to end neglect and abuse in nursing homes. If this is a subject you are interested in, then by all means, read this novel...it could motivate you to do something good.
RATING: 2 out of 5 stars
Comment: I wonder if this novel could be considered portal fantasy. Basically, it’s about moving from our world (in this case at Haven Nursing) to another world (the angels taking the ghosts to heaven). It might be stretching the definition, but it does fit. B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog say that one of the best portal fantasy novels is Neil Gaiman’s, Coraline :
“One of Gaiman’s earlier novels, with a successful movie adaption from Laika Studios, Coraline is one of those deceptively terrifying books that draw you with mysterious descriptions, and then hold you tight as the scares and the creeps come faster and faster. Coraline and her family move to a new house, and young Coraline is pretty fed up with it; it’s old, it’s boring, and her parents do not give her the attention she wants. But when she discovers the key to a locked door in the living room, she goes through into a different world: a big, beautiful, lavish house, with parents who shower her with attention and treats, with entertainment around every corner. It is perfect. So perfect, she doesn’t even mind that her other Mother and Other Father have buttons for eyes. And that they don’t like when she leaves. And, in fact, don’t want her to go at all. Gaiman’s spooky story is a prime illustration of how sometimes, an imperfect world is a perfectly fine thing, and that what you journey to find may have been in front of you all along.”
This novel was mainly a dissertation on today’s atrocious nursing home conditions. I was made to believe that this novel would be comparable to Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (see my review of 6/15/2015). The author presented her novel to me as a suspenseful, psychological thriller with sinister overtones. That statement is flawed at best. It starts out as an ordinary story that suddenly mutates into a ridiculously zany and bizarre ending. But none of it was suspenseful or thrilling for me. The author’s promise of ghosts haunting the nursing facility initially seemed to be an afterthought. Zelda (the main character’s mother who calls ghosts...spooks) saw a spook on page two and didn’t see another one until page 108. And when they finally appeared, they were more preposterous than scary. So what did the author do correctly? She kept the main characters down to a reasonable number. Her prose, while mostly rudimentary, seemed mistake free. It boils down to the fact that the story wasn’t electrifying nor groundbreaking. I felt no empathy for any of the characters, including the patients and the trapped ghosts. We already know that nursing homes are notoriously uncaring for a variety of reasons, which the author (to her credit) identified in her novel, but I don’t think (that) it is possible to have a catastrophic event happen every time you drop by to visit your relative (which was the case in this novel). I think the author has a feasible future in literature, but please come up with a better tale sans the fantasy part. This story is not comparable to Henry James’ classic short story.
The story starts with a rain storm off the coast of Maine. David Reed is painting in his studio when he gets a call from one of the few good nurses from the Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center where his mother, Zelda, is a patient recovering from a broken hip. The nurse asks David if it’s okay for them to give his mother a drug to calm her down. David says “no” to that idea and gets in his car and drives down to the nursing home. As it turns out, his mom was being verbally abused by a mean nurse named Taylor Hanson. David arrives and calms his mom down. Zelda says, “David, please get me out of here.” David says, “Once you finish your therapy, I’ll take you home.” David explains to Zelda that the doctor will not release her until her therapy is finished. She says, “But I’m afraid.” David says, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Zelda says, “Yes there is. There’s spooks in here.” This is the first mention of ghosts, or spooks, as Zelda calls them. As the weeks go by, David realizes what a abusive place this nursing home is. His mom says she is refused showers, made to pee in her pants and abused every day. Kevin and Edgar Fitzgerald are friends of the Reeds. Their father (they call him Da) is also an abused patient at the Haven’s center. The abuse gets worse. David threatens to sue the doctor for reckless endangerment to no avail. David takes his grievances to the State Health Department. He gets nowhere with them, “I’m sorry. But the results of our investigation show that the staff at Haven has done nothing wrong.” Suddenly, the Fitzgerald brothers say that the Haven staff killed their Da...will the poop hit the fan? (so to speak).
This is where the story moved into the fantasy genre. It’s kind of like when the movie, The Wizard of Oz went from black and white to color. Like when King Kong left the jungle and arrived in NYC, or when Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland fell through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world. Why C. L. Salaski switched from a drama to a fantasy is something only she knows. But all is not lost. If the novel was awful, I wouldn’t have finished the book. I finished the book. Strong evidence of what I said in my opening sentence in the first paragraph is presented at the end of the novel. On the last page, the author list eight things you can do to end neglect and abuse in nursing homes. If this is a subject you are interested in, then by all means, read this novel...it could motivate you to do something good.
RATING: 2 out of 5 stars
Comment: I wonder if this novel could be considered portal fantasy. Basically, it’s about moving from our world (in this case at Haven Nursing) to another world (the angels taking the ghosts to heaven). It might be stretching the definition, but it does fit. B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog say that one of the best portal fantasy novels is Neil Gaiman’s, Coraline :
“One of Gaiman’s earlier novels, with a successful movie adaption from Laika Studios, Coraline is one of those deceptively terrifying books that draw you with mysterious descriptions, and then hold you tight as the scares and the creeps come faster and faster. Coraline and her family move to a new house, and young Coraline is pretty fed up with it; it’s old, it’s boring, and her parents do not give her the attention she wants. But when she discovers the key to a locked door in the living room, she goes through into a different world: a big, beautiful, lavish house, with parents who shower her with attention and treats, with entertainment around every corner. It is perfect. So perfect, she doesn’t even mind that her other Mother and Other Father have buttons for eyes. And that they don’t like when she leaves. And, in fact, don’t want her to go at all. Gaiman’s spooky story is a prime illustration of how sometimes, an imperfect world is a perfectly fine thing, and that what you journey to find may have been in front of you all along.”
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