Review of The Rocks by Peter Nichols

The Rocks by Peter Nichols is being marketed as a literary summer beach book. Its cover is reminiscent of Jess Walters’ summery, exotic Beautiful Ruins, and I found it on a table labeled, “Hot Summer Reads!” at my local bookstore.

It is true that the island setting of Mallorca is a “character” in this book. You can’t help but feel heat on your skin and the smell of lemons in the air, and Nichols peppers his writing with different languages and dialects. So get ready to be transported if you pick this one up for your Labor Day vacation.

However, unlike last year’s books about tourists behaving badly on Mallorca (The Vacationers by Emma Straub and The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh), this book is about enduring misunderstandings and betrayal. And the setting, which figures so prominently, is part of the betrayal, as newcomers and developers change the landscape and the lives of the longtime residents.

The story is told in reverse. The novel starts with Lulu and Gerald, octogenarians who divorced long ago, seeing each other for the first time in decades. As they begin this strained encounter, an accident happens. The reader follows the couple and their children in sections that move backward through time, looking for the answer to the question of what happened to drive the couple apart.

There is more, however. The story is also about impossible journeys (Gerald once wrote a novel about seafaring and trying to create a geography of Homer’s The Odyssey) and how hard it is to create a home (The Rocks is a hotel that Lulu runs, and it is also a borrowed home for expats). It is about heroism and victimization. It is about revenge. So while the sun shines throughout this book, the territory is dark and complicated.

I have seen reviews where readers have been put off by Nichols’ portrayal of women in this novel. And it is true that many of the female characters are either mysterious in an unpleasant way or sexually predatory. (Note: the “ick factor” is somewhat high in some of the scenes). A New York Times reviewer revealed the semi-autobiographical elements of this novel, and it seems as if the author’s real life experience with relationships being “on the rocks” might have influenced how he built the relationships in the novel.  I actually found characters of both sexes kind of off-putting (with many of the men being either smarmy or limp). Gerald and his son are definitely the most well-drawn characters, and I definitely lived in them.

This made me think about the construction gender in novels, especially in literary novels. I don’t think that readers would comment about thin or negative portrayals of women in mass market thrillers, because they’re so common. But do readers have different expectations of literary fiction? Do we have different expectations of novels that are about relationships than we do for spy novels?

As for me, I noted the gender issues in this novel, but I was still carried away by the good writing, by the novel’s compelling structure, and yes, by the setting. I don’t know that I’d call this a “Hot Summer Read!” but I am glad I experienced it. As a side note, I am almost – but not quite – moved to re-read The Odyssey, which was assigned as required summer reading for tenth graders when I was in high school. I wonder if Homer was on the "Hot Summer Reads!" table, too.

You can find an interview with the author here (spoilers included).

Thoughts On Beach Reading and The Girl On the Train by Paula Hawkins

Whenever I am preparing for a vacation, my attention goes first to figuring out the best book(s) to read. I have to decide:

What to read on the plane (in this case, I read Unfamiliar Fishes)

What to read on the beach (this one!)

How many books to bring (Four + one e-book. Too many.)

How many books I will buy and have to bring back (Zero, though I did visit this fantastic bookstore!)

I was lucky that The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins arrived at the library just days before my departure to Hawaii. I had heard the buzz about this book and was so excited to have on hand what many were calling the perfect vacation read.

And in many ways, it was.

The novel follows Rachel, who rides a commuter train every day and watches a couple whose house sits alongside the tracks. One day she learns that the woman she has been watching has gone missing – and, it turns out, she might hold the key to the disappearance. The problem is, Rachel has huge gaps in her memory and is generally untrustworthy (in particular, she is drunk all the time).

There have been many comparisons between this book and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and I can definitely see that. There’s a similar collection of distasteful characters. There is quite a bit of narrator unreliability. (Bad) marriages are the key element of both books. And there’s a sense that this story could move easily from stage to big screen.

Here are the two ways in which this book fits the mold of my kind of good vacation read:

1)   It is broken into very short sections and has a fast-driving plot. The short sections facilitate breaks to dip ones toes in the ocean and opportunities to sink into the hot tub. The plot-heavy focus makes it so that the reader’s brain does not have to work very hard.

2)   It is billed as a “literary thriller,” which is mostly true. The pacing is definitely thriller-esque, but the writing is not predictable. Hawkins pulls apart and pushes together the narration and the timing in an inventive way.  I’m willing to accept the “literary” label here.  This book was easy to read, but not too light.

However, there are also a couple of ways in which The Girl On The Train might not be everyone’s glass of iced tea.

1)   The women are dumb. Rachel, especially, makes exceedingly bad decisions, over and over again. Women who make ridiculous decisions are actually part of the thriller formula, which can be irritating. I can’t even count how many mass-market thrillers I have read in which the very educated and esteemed forensic scientist decides, after the serial killer has gruesomely murdered many victims, to venture out on her own to search his apartment in the middle of the night, presumably so she can be rescued by the troubled detective with the heart of gold that she will romance as the series continues.

2)   There are quite a few contrived plot elements to move the story forward. I understand that suspending disbelief can be part of the process of beach reading, but this book did push me almost all the way to my limit. (e.g. Please don’t keep showing up at a creepy suspect’s house to talk to him when you could just call; And if you know that your ex-husband’s new wife is trying to frame you, please don’t skulk outside her house).

The upshot for me: The Girl on the Train did the trick, like a somewhat watery cocktail on the beach on a sunny day. It’s a fun read, but pretty easily forgotten.

You can find an interview with the author here and an article about the Gone Girl comparison here.